On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 18:15:24 -0500, Lee Revell <rlrevell@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Apparently the main reason Nvidia and ATI cannot open their source > is because they are both knowingly infringing each others patents. > No, I really don't think this is the reason. I don't believe either of these companies intentionally infringe on their competitor's, or anyone elses, patents. What's more likely is that there is visibility given to their competitor by the way you talk to the hardware through a function call. When I start to understand the registers that a piece of hardware makes visible I start to understand the architecture of the product itself. If NVidia believes has an advantage over ATI in some area then possibly ATI would copy that and improve their performance. Neither company probably knows the intimate details of the inner workings of the other company's chips and hence thinks they have the advantage. Beyond ATI, maybe they are fending off new competitors trying to enter the market. Why tell anyone what your secret sauce is made of? If it's no longer secret, and it doesn't have some other form of protection, then anyone can copy it for free. It's a huge business opportunity for each of them, extendign way beyond PCs and into many other sorts of hardware like gaming boxes, render farms, and they must do what they think is best for their shareholders.
