Rationale for not releasing drivers as FOSS

[Ben Scott]

On 1/9/06, Michael ODonnell <michael.odonnell at comcast.net> wrote:
> In general, I am still baffled by companies who withold
> Linux drivers for their HW, my current employer included.
> However, this article:
>
>   http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20060108163615614
>
> ...provides at least a glimpse into that mindset.

Some other reasons I've heard given:

- For wireless drivers, making hardware specs fully open might allow
users to "hack" the chips into doing radio things prohibited in a
given jurisdiction (such as the FCC).
- For video chips, the drivers and the hardware are so closely
inter-meshed that FOSS'ing all the details of the driver might expose
"trade secret" type stuff.
- In general, today's patent climate being what it is, there is so
much cross-licensing going on that even trying to figure out who owns
what to ask them to allow it to be FOSS'ed is difficult, let alone
getting them to say "Yes".

I'm not saying any of the above are reasons that actually occur in
practice.  Nor am I defending any of them.  Nor am I saying they make
sense.  I'm just cranking the rumor mill.  ;-)

-- Ben