Re: The i2o Bus: A Conspiracy Against Free Software? (fwd)
Christopher Blizzard (blizzard@appliedtheory.com)
Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:59:28 -0400
In message <199707181411.PAA14650@isengard.uk.ml.com>, Tethys writes:
:
:>> I suspect that if i2o peripherals become popular, free operating systems
:>> will be locked out from running on PC hardware.
:>
:>I've got 2 words for this (if it's true): REVERSE ENGINEER.
:>It's been done before, and it'll be done again...
:
:Depending on what you're reverse engineering, it may also be illegal.
:However, you should be able to apply dirty/clean room techniques to
:it to achieve the same effect.
:
:Also, wouldn't this be anti-competitive practice? They're preventing
:OS vendors who want to ship source from being able to support the
:hardware needed to retain market share. Maybe one of them will sue,
:be it RedHat, Caldera, BSDI or whoever...
:
:The other option would be for a company (or individual) to sign the
:NDA, develop the driver and make it available as a binary only kernel
:module. Not ideal, I know, but it would at least be one solution.
:Wasn't something like this done for AFS support?
:
:Tet
:
There are a couple of examples of this including Caldera's binary module
for Novell access similar to ncpfs. There was also a serial port driver
that Alan Cox mentioned once which I belive was distributed as assembly
that didn't work very well.
Caldera's module may actually be a pretty good example of this. Every
time that a new kernel was released, they had to distribute a new module.
While this model works, it's difficult to manage from a technical
standpoint. I get the feeling that Caldera distributes this modules as
binary only because NDS is available only through an NDA-type agreement.
Also there are various nefarious maketing reasons why this might be the
case that I won't even go into.
The fact remains however that this new "standard" is a threat to the whole
idea of free software. They want control over who has access to the
hardware so they can keep thier grip on the market.
--Chris
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Christopher Blizzard
AppliedTheory Communications, Inc.
http://odin.appliedtheory.com/
blizzard@appliedtheory.com
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