Nvidia Reiterates Position on Closed Source Driver (OSnews)

"I don't see how nouveau would solve the problem that the manufacturer of a product is not
willing to release how the product works."

There's a possibility that nouveau (current or future) developers' brilliance will shed enough
light to inner workings of the hw so that it'll become pointless for nvidia to maintain their
closed driver. This pointlessness might be a stronger argument than minute effects of floss
enthusiasts' buying decisions on nvidia hw sales.

"Do you really think it's ok to always play catch-up and reverse engineer what is willingly
hidden?"

Yeah, with nv's current pace it'll remain hard. But nv may be forced to cut expenses (read:
slow down on r/d) in the future.