[MPlayer-users] Re: best graphical card for mplayer

[D Richard Felker III]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 11:01:58AM -0500, Jonathan Rogers wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> D Richard Felker III wrote:
> >Maybe you think it's fair that they get away with advertising their
> >products as doing things which they really can't/don't do, by
> >emulating missing features with the drivers? IMO the two biggest
> >reasons they don't release specs are to cover up lies in the
> >advertising and to cover up infringement on (usually bogus) patents.
> 
> I'm sure companies get away with advertising features their products 
> don't have, but do you know that Nvidia and ATI are doing this? Maybe 
> they are, but I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure 
> you're right that there are sometimes shady reasons for not releasing 
> specs. There are undoubtedly many bogus patents involved.
> 
> >
> >Releasing a product without the necessary information to use it (and
> >this includes "supported" platforms like windows too, since eventually
> >nvidia will go out of business and there'll be windows 2010 with a new
> >driver architecture (and new cpu instruction set too) and no one will
> >be able to use their old geforce) is a scam, plain and simple.
> >Covering up your false claims about what your hardware can do with
> >secret emulation in software? That's a scam too. This is a classic
> >case of corporate crime, and it needs to be stopped.
> 
> I certainly agree that the more specs released the better, but I don't 
> think it's fair to hold a company accountable for what might happen when 
> it hypothetically goes out of business at some undetermined future date. 
> If you have an agreement with the company that they will provide certain 
> support for a certain period of time, they are obligated. Does buying a 
> $50 video card imply such an agreement? If so, how long does it last?
> 
> It seems to me that hardware manufacturers usually make claims that a 
> certain product will work with certain current operating systems. Unless 
> the product fails to work in the situations the manufacturer claims, 
> it's not fraud. Not releasing specs is failing to serve their customers 
> the best they could, but it's not a scam.

Then it's a different type of corporate crime -- environmental
destruction. Making a device that's meant to be useless (and thus
thrown in a landfill) after a few years. In any case what they're
doing is not acceptable.

Rich