The display API is already open, you just open /dev/display and memmap it (there's an ioctl to blat the image to the screen, this is in the kernel source which is rolled into the SA1100 patchset).

If someone writes a better open-source player - great, we'll use it ourselves. I don't think it's likely one will appear in the next 6-12 months though, it's not a small job.

Basically, hardware can be cloned in short periods of time and legally - especially if you've got money to throw into development. Software is much harder. Relying on hardware sales is dangerous, unless you're in a market where there simply isn't room for other companies to enter the market - things like scientific equipment, for example.

Remember, redhat make most of their money from support, not from product sales - people aren't really used to paying for support on a car radio (and we'd have to ship a LOT of hardware to make a living from support). We don't make a killing on the player hardware either, which suprises some people. The realities of custom design, low volumes (ie, we don't buy 100,000 ram chips at a time), and so on doesn't lend itself to making cute custom products, which is why you don't see a lot of people making low-volume things like this.

Hugo