From: ins413j@mdw056.cc.monash.edu.au (Markfried Fellensiek)
Subject: Diamond Products Boycot?
Organization: Monash University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
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Diamond Video cards (stealth, viper, speedstar, etc...) 
may have excellent specifications, and the windows drivers that
come with them might make windows BLINDINGLY fast, BUT:

If you're considering buying a system, with a view to using
it to run Unix (Linux, bsd, etc...) or some other special software,
there is a good chance that it WILL NOT WORK with the Diamond cards.
This is due to Diamond's propriety attitude to it's hardware:
it's impossible to get free information from them about their chips 
(specifically their dot-clocks) without paying, and signing non-disclosure
agreements.

This made it impossible for the Free Software Foundation to provide
X-Windows compatibility with these cards, as diamond didn't want to 
divulge programming neccessities.

As far as I know only Diamond has this propriety on it's info.


Mark.