From: Sven <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com, mass@ufl.edu
  Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 10:29:26 +0200 (MET DST)

Re: NVidia is a horseshit company

> If you threaten someone in the act of trying to persuade them, don't be
> surprised when they punch you in defense :) It is far better to have an
> email campaign of people who are saying "I will help you write a driver,
> or even do it all myself under NDA if that is needed." rather then "You
> people suck! I will never buy your products since you don't support
> linux.". One will sit better, guess which

o come on, this was just an idea, not yet very polished.

naturally, you should phrase it diplomatically, and say something like :

your card looks great, but since it will not run under linux like i would liek it, i will not buy it. Once their is a sufficient quantity of mails that will show them there is a real need for releasing linux drivers,
they will see what amount of potential seels they are going to loose, ands they will maybee change their mind.
then comes, or in parrallel step, another thread were you propose to write the drivers, if they provide you the corresponding information. and you are nice with them.

the NDA part is not so nice, but ok if you can release source of your drivers,
binary only driver are evil, because you will block out non i386 hardware people,
and just be one more pawn in the intel marketing campaign.

if after all that they still don't want to release enough specs for a working driver, then they deserve the wrath of the linux people, and we should boycott them, start a terror marketing compaign against them and so on.

> Could you please explain again why they have a legal responsibility to

legal i don't know, but as previous mails statted there could be a basement behind that, so it should not be a stupid treath, but to a mail by someone with some knowledge on software leagalese that point them out to them in which points they could be sued.

but they have a moral obligation to provide me with enough information onthe board i buy so that ui can use it.

Friendly,

Sven LUTHER