Possibly offtopic : Binary only driver

[Mike Hearn]

On Sun, 21 Nov 2004 12:37:48 -0500, Sean wrote:
> Both of which run under the protection of the kernel.

So what? It still involves debugging programs with binary components.

> It's not capitalism per se, but unfortunate patent laws and other legal
> entanglements.

I think you missed the point: if nVidia took a (let's be optimistic) 5%
performance hit to move stuff out of the kernel, ATI would make a big deal
of the fact that their systems were faster. Performance is one of the
primary factors people use to choose which vendor to go with, so more
people would go with ATI.

If you keep making those sorts of decisions you end up bankrupt, because
ultimately you're not meeting the customers needs. For once, patents and
other "legal entanglements" don't enter into it.