From: dwex@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (david.e.wexelblat)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.x-window
Subject: Free software and the future of support for Diamond products
Date: 3 Sep 92 23:26:13 GMT
Distribution: fj
Organization: AT&T

Date: 3 Sep 92 16:24:13 GMT
Message-Id: <1992Sep3.162413.19770@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,comp.windows.x,comp.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.mach,comp.graphics,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware


[ This is a personal statement and does not represent any position being
  taken by my employer.  My affiliation is only listed so that those who
  wish to reply to this statement may do so. ]

Diamond, makers of the SpeedStar and Stealth series of SVGA cards, have
developed a new hardware technology for video dot-clock selection.  The
current boards that have this new technology are the SpeedStar 24, the
SpeedStar 24X, and the Steath boards.  Diamond considers this hardware
technology proprietary, and feel that giving out information on how to
program this hardware will yield a competetive advantage to their
competitors.

This position makes it impossible to support these boards on operating
systems that do not use the BIOS (e.g. Unix), unless one is willing
to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Diamond.  Obviously, this is
impossible for software for which the source code is freely available.

In particular, these newer Diamond boards will not be supported by the
free X Window System packages (in particular XFree86, previously known
as X386 1.2E) that are available for a number of x86 operating systems 
(SVR3, SVR4, 386BSD, Mach386, Linux).  There are commercial packages that 
do support these boards.

It is the contention of the authors of XFree86, the free enhancement
package for X11R5 on x86, that Diamond is will be losing customers
based on this policy.  We are aware that many people will only buy
boards that work with this software, and that there are boards available
from Diamond's competitors that fill this need.  We are also certain that 
there are other software packages that fall into the same category.

We have been in contact with a representative of Diamond about this policy.
He indicated to me that there are currently no plans to change the 
proprietary nature of this information, but they are willing to hear
our arguments for such a change.  To that end, we would like to collect
some statistics that we can give to Diamond.  We have set up a mail
drop to collect this information.  If you have not bought, will not
in the future buy, or have in fact returned Diamond hardware because
of this policy, please send a short note to <diamond@physics.su.oz.au>
Any mail sent to this address will be deposited in a file, and will
only be looked at occasionally, so don't expect a reply.  If you
want a reply on this issue, mail to <xfree86@physics.su.oz.au>.  Please
indicate the amount to Diamond product impacted by your decision (e.g.
if you are a VAR, an estimate of the number of systems shipped per
month that will not contain Diamond boards will be useful).

We do not know what impact, if any, this data will have on Diamond.
As long as this policy remains in effect, XFree86 will not support new
Diamond products.  We choose to make this stand for reasons of liability
avoidance.  So if someone publishes the technical information required,
we will not use it, nor will we accept code that uses it, until we
know that Diamond's policy has changed.  Be aware that if you disassemble
their BIOS, you are risking a lawsuit.  We will not assume that liability,
so don't even ask!

	The XFree86 Core Team:
		David Dawes <dawes@physics.su.oz.au
		Glenn Lai <glenn@cs.utexas.edu>
		Jim Tsillas <jtsilla@damon.ccs.northeastern.edu>
		David Wexelblat <dwex@mtgzfs3.att.com>

	Mail drop for Diamond sales loss data:
		diamond@physics.su.oz.au

	To contact the Core Team:
		xfree86@physics.su.oz.au

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