From: David Waite <mass@ufl.edu>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 21:32:32 -0400

Re: NVidia is a horseshit company

Shawn Leas wrote:
> 
> What a horseshit half-assed bung-eating bug-sucking snake-licking
> buggered-up bunch of fuk heads they are over there.
> 

hehe, settle down!

> I wrote [NOT as a GGI dude, just as self] inquiring about applying for
> docs.
> 
> Needless to say, after getting a response equivelent to "Blow me" I let
> them know how rediculous it is that they do not provide *necessary*
> information with their card.

I don't know if they still do, but they used to have something in their
FAQ about this.. something to the effect of "Would it be possible for me
to get the documentation for the Riva 128 chipset in order to write a
driver for xxx operating system?" "no"

I also heard that there is someone from Canopus who was complaining on
the Mesa list that even *they* couldn't get the documentation on the 3d
portion of the card.

I personally think that keeping this information secure is kinda stupid,
considering that there is so little information you can gather about how
a chipset works on an internal level by the register lists- even 3dfx I
can see why they would want to protect this (to prevent a third party
from coming along and making something register-compatible so that they
can use Glide) but since NVidia is only using D3D and OpenGL and other
high level, licensable APIs, this isn't an issue.

The only excuse I can think of for them is that they don't want to deal
with the hassle of tech issues dealing with the documentation or drivers
written by third parties. Big issue actually.

> So, if you want to use the card, you HAVE TO BUY 95 or NT. [Thank you
> Captain Caps Lok].  This is against the LAW, given the current
> interpretation of it.

How do you figure that NVidia is breaking the law? They are making a
product for a particular platform. What country is making a product
considered against the law?

> The card is hard to ignore, so is it possible to, as John mentioned, hack
> up a kludgy driver looking at the XFree Source?  I'm afraid that's out of
> my expertise.

If they don't release specs, reverse engineering will probably happen. I
may start looking into obtaining documentation under NDA myself in a
month (I want a TNT, but Matrox or 3dfx are getting my business if
Nvidia can't realize they are screwing their customers over in this way)

-David Waite