Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: The i2o Bus: A Conspiracy Against Free Software? (fwd) | Date | Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:11:39 +0100 | From | Tethys <> |
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>> 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 appear to be few if any technical reasons to move from UNIX to Windows NT. The performance of Linux exceeds that of NT 4.0 and Linux appears to be more reliable.'' -- David Korn, AT&T, author of ksh --------------------+--------------+---------------------------------------- tethys@ml.com | Micro$oft: | Linux, the choice of a GNU generation. tet@astradyne.co.uk | Just say no! | See http://www.uk.linux.org for details
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