New ATI Driver - they can't

[Dexter Filmore]

On Friday 20 July 2007 16:02:05 manchicken wrote:
> On Friday 20 July 2007 06:18:28 Dotan Cohen wrote:
> [snip]
>
> > As right as you are, _any_ improvements in official Linux support from
> > major manufacturers such as ATI/AMD is a step in the right direction.
> > It will set precedent to the smaller manufacturers.
>
> Except that it's not the smaller manufacturers that are a problem.  It is
> particularly the large manufacturers that are the problem.  They use their
> market share to marginalize and exclude those who are contrary to their
> goals or are simply less profitable.  THAT is what the problem is.  It's
> not that they can't, it's that they won't, and they never will until


Umm, they actually can't. The OpenGL implementation in (at least) NVidia cards 
are intellectual property bought from SGI. But not only NV (and possibly ATi) 
bought rights that, so did Microsoft. 
So to provide open src drivers NV (+ATi?) would have to give away code to NDA 
IP. Not gonna happen.

Dex


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