Andrew Fear quote clarification request

[russofris]

Hi there,

I just read an article containing the following quote from Andrew Fear of Nvidia. I was wondering if someone from Nvidia could clarify what was said. The article is located here ( http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/softwa...9352584,00.htm )

The quote is:

For Nvidia, intellectual property is a secondary issue. "It's so hard to write a graphics driver that open-sourcing it would not help," said Andrew Fear, Nvidia's software product manager. In addition, customers aren't asking for open-source drivers, he said.

Some Nvidia components are open, including some driver configuration tools and a driver component that interfaces to the kernel. "We believe in open source where it makes sense," Fear said.

My questions are as follows:

1: When Mr Fear referrs to "customers", is he speaking about OEMs, VAR/HARs, or end-users?

2: Has Nvidia looked at cases where companies 'have' open sourced (part of) their graphics driver? Withe the XGI acquisition, has having an OSS 2D driver been a benefit or detriment to Nvidia?

3: From which kernel is the Nvidia 2D driver derived (SysV, BSD, NT, Linux)?

Thank you for your time,
Frank Russo

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