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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!darwin.sura.net!haven.umd.edu!umd5.umd.edu!roissy.umd.edu!mark From: mark@roissy.umd.edu (Mark Sienkiewicz) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.apps Subject: Re: X-windows & Diamond VLB Date: 16 Jul 1993 13:52:57 GMT Organization: University of Maryland Lines: 30 Distribution: world Message-ID: <226brp$12e@umd5.umd.edu> References: <michaelv.742745330@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu> <224eor$88t@europa.eng.gtefsd.com> <224gl7$fvj@pdq.coe.montana.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: roissy.umd.edu In article <224gl7$fvj@pdq.coe.montana.edu> nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes: >In article <224eor$88t@europa.eng.gtefsd.com> niemidc@oasis.gtefsd.com writes: >> >>How about a company that cares more about their customer base, and MORE >>about their bottom line? Diamond's policy loses Diamond money and gains >>them nothing. It is being kept out of ignorance, not out of greed. > >Diamond is fully aware of their losses from not supplying programming >information. They were told by the XFree86 group a long while back, along >with some numbers that explained lost sales due to their "policy" of >not distributing the information. > >They are not ignorant of the lost sales, they just don't care. Probably they think that revealing how their board works will be enough for other companies to cut into their market share. It's within their rights to keep it a secret, just like it is within our rights to dislike them for it. The thing that confuses me is this: If they really have a new and clever idea in their system, it would be patentable. If it were patented, they would not need to use trade secret protection, and thus could gain sales by telling us how to use it. Therefore, there must not be anything about the Diamond boards that is any better than Other-Leading-Brand. Does anyone have any insights into this? (Please reply by mail, unless you think lots of people want to know.) mark@roissy.umd.edu