This morning at the X Developer Summit in the United Kingdom, Matthew Tippett and John Bridgman of AMD have announced that they will be releasing their ATI GPU specifications without any Non-Disclosure Agreements needed by the developers!
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spikeb
17 years 3 weeks 4 days 16 hours ago
is it just me, or is this very,
is it just me, or is this very, very awesome news?
can.axis
17 years 3 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago
Awesome news ;-) December 18,
Awesome news ;-)
December 18, 2005
http://img.clubic.com/photo/00FA000000299050.jpg
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9350
"RMS: ...The main issues are hardware with secret specifications, software patents, and treacherous computing.
On hardware with secret specifications: it is hard to write free software for hardware whose specifications are secret. In the 1970s the computer company would hand you a manual with information about every level of interface, from the electrical signals to the software, so you could properly use their products. But for the past 10-15 years, there has been hardware whose specs are secret. Proprietary software developers can get the specs if they sign a non-disclosure agreement; the public cannot.
So we are forced to experiment and reverse-engineer, which takes time, or pressure the companies, which sometimes works. The worst example is in 3-D graphics, in which most chip specs are secret..."