“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…”
Hardware Archaeology
By
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