Re: [9fans] Are nvidia-cards working with plan9?

[jiho@smtp.popsite.net]

In article <20001005151052.3FEAB199DE@mail>,
	dhog@plan9.bell-labs.com (David Gordon Hogan) writes:

>>> If the Wall Street crowd had their way, Microsoft would
>>> declare their drop-down menus proprietary, so you'd have
>>> to hire someone to operate your PCs for you.
>>
>> Don't blame Wall Street, blame the buying public, and their inability
>> to resist the media.
>
> Or blame the media for being so hard to resist...  (I sense an infinite
> regress lurking here).

Actually, I wasn't laying blame, I was just alluding
to _de_facto_ reality.

There's a small matter of U.S. anti-trust law, and a
principle known as "fair access to essential
facilities".  It dates back to the railroad tycoons,
fer cryin' out loud.  Ironically, the case has been
made against Microsoft software.  It's even more
obvious with respect to chips, but as far as I know
(not very far) no one has tried making the case.

In this context "fair access" means public
documentation, sufficient for any competent graphics
chip driver writer to write his own "naked hardware"
driver -- for any arbitrary OS -- which uses all
features of the chip claimed by the chip's maker.

In other words, legally you shouldn't _need_ to burn
your own silicon, at least not in the U.S.


--Jim Howard  <jiho@mail.c-zone.net>