Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 19:21:19 -0500 From: Sergey Babkin <babkin@bellatlantic.net> To: Justin Wojdacki <justin@chiplogic.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs Linux, Solaris, and NT Message-ID: <3A414CFF.89F4D9D6@bellatlantic.net> References: <Your message of "Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:43:17 EST." <5.0.0.25.0.20001219111044.020739e0@mail.etinc.com> <5.0.0.25.0.20001219120619.020cbac0@mail.etinc.com> <3A4012A0.44B4CEED@bellatlantic.net> <3A401DC9.FE79B8AB@chiplogic.com>
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Justin Wojdacki wrote: > > Sergey Babkin wrote: > > > > The drivers are _not_ assets. When I buy a piece of hardware I > > very reasonably expect that it would come with drivers or at > > least the manual on how to write these. It's a part of the deal. > > There are absolutely no reasons for the card manufacturers to > > withhold this information, their hardware is their copyright > > protection device and source of profit. > > > However, if the device requires software to take on part of the > functionality (examples: WinModems, although I'm not sure whether it's > the driver or the OS that's doing the work there. I also suspect some > OpenGL cards may be like this), then the driver is more likely to be > considered an asset. Therefore, asserting that the device manufacturer > has no reason to withhold this information is unfortunately incorrect. Agreed. But still keeping the hardware interface secret does not make that much sense. -SB To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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