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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!newshost.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!vic.news.telstra.net!news.mira.net.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.uoknor.edu!news.nodak.edu!netnews1.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!uw-beaver!uhog.mit.edu!news.mathworks.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk!cs.york.ac.uk From: forsyth@plan9.cs.york.ac.uk (Charles Forsyth) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Why to not buy Matrox Millennium Message-ID: <827851310.2@cs.york.ac.uk> Date: 26 Mar 1996 14:41:50 GMT References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <4j6msk$ho@darkstar.my.lan> Lines: 14 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.apps:13705 comp.os.linux.development.system:20060 comp.os.linux.x:27696 comp.os.linux.hardware:34448 comp.os.linux.setup:47374 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:302 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:2797 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:2575 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:16063 i have heard the argument many times that releasing hardware-level/register-level programming information for a device will allow `their technology to be stolen by competitors'. presumably any serious potentital competitor will not be stopped by this: if they are intending to clone it, they will take the card apart, apply logic analysers, disassemble the ROMs, and generally reverse-engineer the hardware, since that's the thing that normally gives the device its speed, not the programming interface. meanwhile, no one else can write drivers for the wretched thing, which limits the spread of new systems, and even if you're running DOS/Windows, you're stuck with the driver software the manufacturer provides, which might not be terribly good (even if the underlying hardware is fine).