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SubjectRe: The i2o Bus: A Conspiracy Against Free Software? (fwd)
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Dan Hollis <mailto:goemon@sasami.anime.net> writes:
>Someone should make a comprehensive web page about why I2O is wrong, why
>the NDA is wrong, the real reason behind the NDA, why I2O is nothing new,
>compare I2O to MCA (that should scare a lot of management types), etc.
>
As I understand it, and I've only glanced at the design overview, I2O
is designed so that hardware vendors can write drivers to a layer falling
between the OS and the devices. This layer is controlled by a i960 running
something along the lines of vxWorks. The OS (linux in this case) only needs
to be able to talk to the interface exported by the i960. We don't need the
detailed specs of the underlying communications between the i960 and the
device being controlled.
So you say, how do we obtain the protocol to talk to the generic
communications layer? Here is my (maybe naive) thought on the matter. If we
don't get it from the hardware vendors there sales suffer. Thats the bottom
line. Linux users and the other free OS are no longer totally ignorable from
the view of the all powerful dollar. It is in the best interest of the
hardware vendors to make there drivers work on a number of OS, even if M$ gets
a little peeved. The cost of driver development for hardware vendors drops if
they only need to write it once for it to work on 95/98/NT, OS2, Linux, etc.
If this is the way of things they will have to make the spec to talk to said
drivers public.

--
Benjamin Saller Bender <case@AppliedTheory.com>
AppliedTheory Communications Software Engineering Group
http://AppliedTheory.com/ Sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare.



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