What happens if AMD just makes and releases the driver under an Open Source license and tells the HDMI forum to sit and spin? It doesn’t look like AMD has a seat on the HDMI forum, so I’m guessing losing a seat on the HDMI forum isn’t what’s concerning them.

Maybe the HDMI spec isn’t open and the HDMI forum specifically licensed the HDMI 2.1 spec to AMD and if AMD released a driver the HDMI forum would argue it’s a derivative work under copyright law? Or maybe the HDMI forum made AMD sign a contract forbidding the release of any unapproved drivers as a condition of getting access to the HDMI spec?

We live in a fucked up world, folks. But I’d guess that if anyone built an Open Source driver without the spec (by reverse-engineering the spec) they’d probably be fine on the derivative work bit… but someone might come after them for trafficking in anti-anti-circumvention stuff.