Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 20:56:57 -0500 From: Dennis <dennis@etinc.com> To: wpaul@FreeBSD.ORG (Bill Paul), msmith@FreeBSD.ORG (Mike Smith) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: if_fxp - the real point Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.0.20010309204335.01fc2b00@mail.etinc.com> In-Reply-To: <20010309221250.2384337B71B@hub.freebsd.org> References: <200103091823.f29INLs06070@mass.dis.org>
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At 05:12 PM 03/09/2001, Bill Paul wrote: >Grrrrr. > >(Yes, that's a bad omen. Get the women and children to safety now.) > >(On second thought, leave the women.) > >I think there's one important point that a lot of you are missing here, >which is GETTING DOCUMENTATION. I've seen a couple people suggest that >they'd be willing to donate time/code/etc to fix the fxp driver, but I >strongly suspect that most of these people don't have the slighest idea >what's really involved. You can't just look at the driver code, poke at >it for a while, and expect the answer to fall out: you need the damn >manual for it. And you can't get that from Intel because they're NDA >nazis. (Johnathan Lemon is the one exception to this since he apparently >has ways to gain access to Intel documentation thanks to his job. I think >he's still subject to NDAs though, so I question just how much help he >can really provide. Not that I don't encourge him to do an end run around >Intel wherever he can, of course.) I think its been mentioned several times in this and other threads that intel has a driver for LINUX that is effective documentation on the board, and the code is public (although you may have to stick an intel copyright in the code also). Anyone who has signed an NDA will have trouble doing anything other than telling someone else how to do it (as long as he does it privately). Sometimes NDAs arent really what they are. There is certainly no damage to intel since they've released their own driver for linux for the board...it would be pretty difficult for them to go after someone for disclosing something that they've already disclosed themselves. I've decided to get what i need working myself, although its not clear that 1) what I do will be a generic fix and 2) whether I'll be able to release the code. or 3) whether it will be clean enough for anyone to want for awhile: But I should know soon how much work its going to be. Sometimes when you go to kick someone in the butt you kick yourself :-) >I see lots of finger-pointing here, yet nobody seems to be prepared to >fault the real culprit, namely Intel. Nobody sends nasty e-mails to >their Intel sales reps or other high mucky-mucks taking them to task over >their nonsensical NDA requirements. Nobody makes any effort to explain to >them just how much more sense it would make and how much more money they >would earn by simply preparing some decent manuals for a change and not >being so anal-retentive about releasing them. If everyone would concentate >their energy on this for a change instead of sniping at each other, I would >be a happy man. You guys continue not to understand why companies dont disclose board info freely. You end up competing with your own customers. They dont want people buying gray market parts and selling $9. boards. Its very easy to clone a board with 2 chips on it these days. Dennis To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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