From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 09:05:26 +0000 From: jiho@smtp.popsite.net Message-ID: <39e0c6c7$1@news2.starnetinc.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii References: <20001005151052.3FEAB199DE@mail> Subject: Re: [9fans] Are nvidia-cards working with plan9? Topicbox-Message-UUID: 15ab9172-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 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