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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!news.cps.udayton.edu!news.conterra.com!imci2!pull-feed.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!cdc2.cdc.net!news.texas.net!news.frontiernet.net!Empire.Net!nntp.alaska.net!usenet From: hmmm <hmmm@alaska.net> 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 Date: Fri, 02 Aug 1996 10:26:54 -0700 Organization: Internet Alaska Inc. Lines: 16 Message-ID: <32023A5E.7623@alaska.net> References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <4j36ev$prl@news.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE> NNTP-Posting-Host: hmmm.alaska.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Win16; I) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.apps:19830 comp.os.linux.development.system:29190 comp.os.linux.x:37319 comp.os.linux.hardware:46577 comp.os.linux.setup:67296 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:973 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:4478 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:4253 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:24969 > >information, I suggest no one interested in running a free Unix system > >buy their products. > > I perfectly understand Matrox's decision not to give away details on > their cards and programming interface. They are afraid of reverse > engineering - as are many of the pc card vendors - did you ever care to > read Adaptec's policy on giving out their hardware documentation (and I > do not mean jumper settings) ? that's BS IMHO. this pisses me off also since i'm in the busness of writing dev drivers. tell me, how the hell can you reverse engineer any piece of hardware by knowing port addresses & I/O info ? what a bunch of BS. the way is see it, it's a matter of laziness. the companies are afraid once they do that, they will have to deal with further questions, although, i'm just not sure why they behave so.