Re: The i2o Bus: A Conspiracy Against Free Software?

Richard A. Soderberg (richards@dnsi.net)
Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:42:09 -0700

It comes to mind to notice that you can still buy 486s in this town
(Eugene, Oregon) and I have access to piles of old, used 386s. Nothing
says I'll be FORCED to upgrade to I2O any time in the next 5 years - it
sure would be nice if someone else reverse engineered it, but I am more
than happy to sit here with my Pentium 200 that plays Linux and Win95 (and
soon, FreeBSD) and rot in the shadow of I2O. You have to pay $250 just to
see the specs, just to see if you even want into the organization, and that
is only for 90 days, one time, at which point they may well ask you to send
the material back (to save on printing costs).

It will be hard for them to completely replace the current x86 PCI/VLB/ISA
and IDE/SCSI setup without a huge amount of complaining. Also, it means,
be careful what is in that new computer you buy - like my Compaq's plug and
play voice modem (uses a DMA...)

Richard

At 05:51 PM 7/18/97 +0200, Rogier Wolff wrote:
>Tethys wrote:
>>
>>
>> >> 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.
>
>Oh. In europe our laws are pretty clear about this. No matter what the
>licence is that that comes with the product, you have the right to
>reverse engineer the product for the purpose of making something
>compatible with the product.
>
>Note that you may not be allowed to reverse engineer for the purpose
>of making a cometing product.
>
> Roger.
>
>
>