We already informed you here that a post Catalyst 3.4 Radeon driver plus the corresponding control panel has been leaked to the world wide web on Wednesday/Thursday. We also stated we were in contact with ATI to work on the mysterious details surrounding this driver leak. The controversy that arouse between people on forums and various websites was fueled by the fact, that the control panel displayed 'Catalyst 3.5'. But ATI has denied that the driver in question is a true Catalyst 3.5 while others insisted upon what they saw in the control panel. I have spoken to Terry Makedon, Senior Software Manager at ATI, about their findings and the impact the canadian company feels driver leaks have. By this official statement ATI reconfirms that the leak is an interim build. The official Catalyst 3.5 drivers will have the packaging number 7.90 and will be released on Monday, June 23rd, 2003. Read more... Warp2Search: Can you please update us on your findings regarding the v6.14.10.6351 driver leak? Terry Makedon - ATI: We have determined that driver 7.89 that leaked recently was intended for a mobile laptop OEM customer of ours. We are working with them to ensure the security breach does not happen in the future. It turns out that these drivers were intended (and tested) for one particular notebook. Somebody got a hold of them and copied older .INF files and patched this driver set. What this effectively means is that they added product support on a very specific driver to all RADEON's. This has unknown consequences as I previously mentioned because this driver set was never intended for all RADEON desktop products. CATALYST 3.5 which is based on driver version 7.90 will be posted on Monday and will fully and properly support all the RADEON's out there. Certain sources of information are spreading the rumor that this leaked driver is a beta of CATALYST 3.5 which is false. Warp2Search: Why does ATI not endorse leaks any longer? Terry Makedon - ATI: 1) One year ago before CATALYST launched, we felt that we were not giving our users the best support possible. We did not have a public driver release policy and at times many months would pass before we even posted drivers. When we did post these drivers they would not even have release notes so people didn't even know what they were getting. We felt we had abandoned our users. Among many things with CATALYST one of the most important was a promise to deliver drivers at frequent and regular intervals. These intervals are at 6 weeks right now. There will be about 2 more releases on a 6 week schedule (one next week and one after it). After that we will do even better by coming out every four weeks. Leaks used to be good for people when we would not post frequently but now with the four week schedule you cant say its not frequent enough. By the way if I do hear that its not frequent enough then maybe I will even move to a 3 or even 2 week cycle. I want to give you guys what you want. Believe me on that. 2) Even more importantly leaked drivers were usually drivers that had not received our QA departments seal of approval. We decided that we were only going to deliver fully tested and fully supported driver. These would also have release notes that even listed known issues. The main point to understand is that we don't want you guys doing our testing for us. That is unfair to you as a consumer, when a big company lets you have unfinished product and turns their back on you and says "we wont support you". That is in essence what leaked drivers are... a company saying "we don't know how good these are but why don't you test them for us". Warp2Search: In the past ATI offered 'hotfixes' for their Catalyst drivers - for instance when Soldier of Fortune II was released. Are these updates still a support option? Terry Makedon - ATI: Yes. We also can and will release hot fixes when something major is broken and enough of you tell us through the Catalyst Crew Feedback Program. Warp2Search: Thank you.