Message-ID: <458C66FF.4040001@webmaster.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 15:15:11 -0800
From: "Nikolaos D. Bougalis" <nikb@webmaster.com>
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To: hancockr@shaw.ca
CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Binary Drivers
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Robert Hancock wrote:
> Nikolaos D. Bougalis wrote:
>>     Manufacturers design product as they see fit and offer it on the 
>> market; I don't see nVidia or ATI thugs twisting your arm behind you 
>> as you walk down the aisle of Fry's Electronics saying "buy this nice 
>> card we made or I'll break your arm."
> 
> If you need high-performance 3D they might as well be, as realistically 
> ATI and NVIDIA are the only providers of high-performance video for the 
> consumer market. Nobody else makes anything that competes, not even 
> onboard video chipsets like Intel, SiS, etc.

	My point was that nowadays most manufacturers, as a matter of course, do not 
provide full details on how the hardware is programmed, and there appears to 
be no significant market for high-performance 3D graphics with an open 
specification.

	I do not like owning a space heater with nifty DVI outputs, and that is a 
fact I take into account when I make a purchasing decision for graphics cards 
I will be using with Linux.

	But I realize that ultimately, companies respond to markets, and not idealism 
and know that ACME Hardware will publish the specs for their rocket-shoes when 
the piece of the Linux rocket-shoe pie becomes lucrative enough. And because I 
do, I try to change the market and educate consumers -- not browbeat companies 
or turn the piece into a crumble by limiting what consumers can do.

	-n

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