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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!news.mathworks.com!wizard.pn.com!brighton.openmarket.com!decwrl!sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk!yama.mcc.ac.uk!news.york.ac.uk!news From: Jonathan Markland <jrm101@tower.york.ac.uk> Newsgroups: comp.graphics.api.misc,comp.graphics.algorithms,comp.windows.x.i386unix,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.development.apps Subject: Re: Freeware community needs 3d library NOW Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 16:30:45 +0100 Organization: The University of York, UK Lines: 29 Message-ID: <31D3FAA5.2984@tower.york.ac.uk> References: <4qlf04$7pj@guysmiley.blarg.net> <4qmk1d$98b@newsgate.dircon.co.uk> <31D09BA1.705E3294@lambert.org> <31d25656.0@news.uni-konstanz.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: cst169.york.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (Win16; I) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.graphics.api.misc:668 comp.graphics.algorithms:29113 comp.windows.x.i386unix:20392 gnu.misc.discuss:26792 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:22394 comp.os.linux.development.apps:18185 Pascal Gienger wrote: [snip] > Why shouldn't hardware vendors give away programming specs of > their hardware? [snip] > Remember: Selling hardware to non-Windows users also > brings money... > > So I don't see any reason for NDAs in this field... I agree with this statement. Personally, I see little reason for NDA as regards information about a 3D chipset's programmable registers, on the basis that the register interface reveals *very little* about the actual hardware implementation. The parallel with the 2D-world has already been drawn. I would definately expect to find NDAs covering disclosure of hardware details, ie: internal design of graphics processors, implementation of algorithms in hardware, but not the software interface. If NDAs are *really* being slapped on anything and everything remotely 3D-related, then there must be some other reasonable explanation for this. Jonathan.