From: David Waite <mass@ufl.edu>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 23:57:50 -0500

RE: STB and S3 tech specs

> -----Original Message-----
> From: smaug@seqserv.seqnet.net [mailto:smaug@seqserv.seqnet.net]On
> Behalf Of Sengan Baring-Gould
>
---
> Hmm... let me be very sceptical that they reverse engineered it from the
> chip. Either that or it was a god-damn simple chip. If they did reverse
> engineer it, I don't see why the .h file was such a help. As previously
> stated: if you can hook into the kernel and see how it does stuff, you'll
> be able to work out what the API is.

Right, except the license for the driver prohibits reverse engineering.
Reverse engineer it, and you are liable to pay a few million once they get
you in court.


That aside, I believe that most of the worries are "old wives tales" (or,
"old geeks tales").  But remember again that while Creative has some pull
with the manufacturers because of the quantity of chips they buy, it still
has to go through a lot of people who don't really understand the situation,
and for that matter don't really care.

Eventually we will move to a state where "alternative" OSs like Linux, BSD,
Hurd, BeOS, OS2, etc. are larger markets, and windows is a slightly smaller
market, and these companies will have to reevaluate their hardware support
position to get the a large % of market share.

Making binary drivers now makes us closer to being able to attract enough
people away from Windows to make this situation possible- it also makes the
steps they will need to take once this situation happens 'smaller'- it is a
step along the right path to first get support, then to get the type of
support the community wants.

-David Waite