On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 10:25 -0400, Jerry McAllister wrote: > On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 06:04:24PM -0400, Jerry wrote: > > > On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 23:25:19 +0200 (CEST) > > Wojciech Puchar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > >> In all likelihood, the probability of any vendor creating FBSD > > >> specific drivers is directly proportionate to the expenditure of > > >> funds to create and maintain the driver versus the expected revenue > > >> from such an expenditure. > > > > > >giving out a specs will be the simplest way. > > > > Any entity, or corporation, has a right to expect a return on their > > investment. To expect a corporation to simply give away something, > > thereby depriving their shareholders, partners or whatever, of their > > rightfully expected monetary reward is foolish. It certainly is not a > > well thought out business model. > > First, in cases like this, giving out the specs so someone can write > a good driver could increase their sales of cards which could, in > turn, increase their profit. So, it would help their business > rather than hurt it. They do not sell those drivers. They just > use them to sell video cards. Since the lack of a driver that > works in FreeBSD limits their sales of video cards, then they are > making the business mistake you are indicating, only in a reverse > sort of way. > > > Second, and very important. No corporation has any right to expect > a return on their investment. Investment is always a risk. They > might hope for a return, but they will have to work for it. They will > be fortunate to get it. More business ventures fail than succeed. > > Maybe it is only a case of using the wrong word, but it is still > important to remember that there is no guarantee of profit. That > was the big failing of price controls - that the government got > in to the business of guaranteeing profits and then the whole thing > fell apart.
Ok, so this is in reply to the previous message on this thread as well as this one. Based on what is said here (and I agree totally), then the NDA would be only on the actually insider specs of the card- you'd have to be a savant to extrapolate the actual guts of the card solely based on the driver (in particular the special features in the hardware- if they're not public knowledge anyway). So why the big hush hush then? NDA signed and obviously a contract drawn which everyone agrees to- manufacturer and programmer. Any reason why this wouldn't work? I know of some that do this (ie m-Audio and OSS). _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
