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
18 years 21 weeks 11 hours 58 min ago
is it just me, or is this very,
is it just me, or is this very, very awesome news?
can.axis
18 years 21 weeks 7 hours 35 min 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..."