Marc Tooley wrote:

>>Personally, I think that it's far more important for nVidia and other
>>manufacturers to just release complete documentation---including
>>    
>>
>
>The problem is that nVidia's hands are already tied. They've very 
>publically stated that some of the technology they use in their 
>products is itself under an NDA, so they simply don't have the power to 
>release information about their cards to us even if they did want to. I 
>believe a majority at nVidia does want to release information to us, 
>because at the moment they're stuck supporting the FreeBSD and Linux 
>kernel modules themselves.
>
>It's not that they're being obtuse: often people make nVidia out to be 
>this big uncaring corporation who's too interested in the bottom line 
>to simply make the decision to open up documentation for their 
>hardware, as though such a decision is a mere CEO penstroke away from 
>happening. The question in essence then becomes, "It's easy to release 
>the documentation. Why don't they just do it?"
>
>This isn't the case, and they've already talked publically about their 
>tied hands in many forums.
>  
>
I'm sure that problem affect other products around as well. Maybe we 
should start asking them to restructure their drivers to have closed 
modules, and as small and cross-platform as possible. As you said, they 
would benefit too for not having to support other OSes. Unless the NDA 
falls precisely within the graphic card's I/O, like some techniques to 
make the most out of AGP for example. In that case they'd be pretty limited.


Bruno