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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
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: 28 Mar 1996 04:18:02 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <4jd3tq$2in@park.uvsc.edu>
References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <4j6msk$ho@darkstar.my.lan>
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alex@darkstar.ping.at (Alexander Sanda) wrote:
] I can understand this behaviour. Matrox has developed one of the most
] sophisticated graphics board for the PC. The Millenium seems to be the
] fastest card available today. They want their technology not to be
] stolen by competitors - I think, it's not so hard to understand.
Their technology is their chips, not how you talk to them.
And they already have protection against that eventuality; it's
called a "patent".
What they don't have protection against is someone building
hardware that responds to Matrox drivers like a Matrox card
would, unless they license their drivers "for use with Matrox
manufactured hardware only". This whould have the same force
as the implied license stricture against reverse engineering:
the same protection they have now.
If I were a competitor, I'd clean-room it anyway; it would cost
me more than just disassembling it, but it would still cost a
hell of a lot less than developing my own from scratch, and
would be a negligible barrier to entry into their market.
In fact, the only ones who are hurt are precisely those to
which a barrier to entry is a barrier, period: people who
will *not* be competing with them.
Diamond's situation was similar, but they had the additional
false economy of their BIOS being programmed by programmers
who didn't consider protected mode at all... conceptually,
there's little difference between that and an undisclosed
interface for any other (bad) reason.
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.