ATI gets a clue.

ron minnich rminnich at lanl.gov
Mon Feb 9 18:51:00 CET 2004


On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Terry Blunt wrote:

> Maybe I'm missing something, but I can never understand hardware
> manufacturers being cagey about their specs. I would have thought it would
> save them a lot of hassle if they *didn't* have to write drivers themselves.

2 reasons. First, somebody might steal their ideas. Evidently this 
happens. 

The second is really complicated, but works like this. Suppose you create 
and design feature X into your chipset. You might find, via a lawsuit, 
that feature X is patented by company Y. I've talked to vendors who would 
like to open their hardware but are scared to do so for this very reason 
-- they might have designed a patented feature into their hardware without 
realizing it.

ron




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