Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Honest does not pay here ... | From | "Trever L. Adams" <> | Date | 05 Jan 2003 19:15:24 -0500 |
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On Sun, 2003-01-05 at 19:01, Andrew McGregor wrote: > I've had some discussion with an ex-NVidia guy who was there while they > were doing the driver release. > > They wanted to dual GPL/BSD license the kernel part in the first place, > then they realised they had a problem. They don't own the copyright on all > that code themselves, nor do they have the right to redistribute specs for > all of the hardware without NDA, because it consists in part of purchased > 'IP blocks' (as hardware people call libraries). So in the end they've > opened up as far as they were allowed by preexisting constraints. > > Remember, the hardware was not constructed with an open source driver in > mind. It's fairly easy to build hardware which can have open source > drivers (you choose your IP block vendors carefully), but NVidia did not do > that in the first place, and now they are stuck. >
I was not aware of all of this as being the case. I am sorry they are stuck in such a bad position. It does raise my opinion of them quite a bit.
> So your belief about hardware is just plain false, unfortunately. You're
No, my belief may not reflect what is, but that doesn't make it false. I know there were, at least until recently, countries that actually dictated what I said by law. Again, how much did reality follow the laws... your guess would probably be better than mine.
> free not to buy their hardware, but I don't think you are being fair to dis > them when they appear to have gotten the point of open source but been > stymied by other vendors. NVidia do try hard to give you the right to use > their stuff with Linux, but there is only so far they can go. > > I expect if Linux makes them enough money, they might buy the rights they > don't have, and release the driver in full. But don't expect that to > happen soon, because if you think proprietary software licenses can be > expensive, you haven't seen hardware.
I expect that IP is expensive to buy. Anyway, thank you for explaining the Nvidia situation to me. I really hope they do figure out some things soon. (Even if that is just how to make kernels with their modules loaded more stable and easier to debug.)
Trever -- "What makes his world so hard to see clearly is not its strangeness but its usualness. Familiarity can blind you." -- Robert M. Pirsig
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