Hardware Archaeology

"One of the running themes of Free/open source software has been how easily drivers for chipsets in old (and often not-so-old) hardware can be created. Some semiconductor vendors keep a tight hold on the details of their chips, and discourage F/OSS developers strongly. The recent news that Open Sound is available as Free software under both GPLv2 and CDDL is a great step forward, and the availability of drivers for R500-family AMD video cards is also fantastic.

"As a long-term manufacturer of fantastic hardware, Sun is frequently approached by groups of developers looking for documentation for the chips used in its products..."

Complete Story

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