<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>Hi,</span></div><div><br><span></span></div><div><span>Linux developers are very open to signing NDAs just to get hardware support:</span></div><div><span>From http://lwn.net/Articles/203562/</span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div> In many others, however, this information
is provided to a specific company or developer under a non-disclosure
agreement (NDA), with the understanding that the resulting driver would then be
released under a free license. This approach has, beyond a doubt, made
more drivers available for use with our systems; it has become a common way
of doing things, especially in the Linux world.
</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>This has been pushed by Leading Linux developers like Greg Kroah !</div><div>http://kerneltrap.org/node/7729</div><div><br></div><div>Greg Kroah-Hartman's announcement for free Linux driver development [<a href="http://kerneltrap.org/node/7636">story</a>]
included the necesssary legal framework to honor NDAs when creating
GPL'd drivers. This allowance was discussed on the OpenBSD -misc
mailing list. In a public exchange with Greg KH, Stephan Rickauer said,
"<i>now these companies have a great excuse to keep specs locked up
tight under NDA, while pretending to be 'open.' The OpenBSD project has
made clear more than once how this will hurt Free Software in the long
run. Signing NDA's ensures that Linux gets a working driver, sure, but
the internals are indistinguishable from magic. It is a source code
version of a blob.</i>" OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt [<a href="http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/6550">interview</a>] called the free driver effort a farce, "<i>you
are trying to make sure that maintainers of code -- ie. any random joe
who wants to improve the code in the future -- has LESS ACCESS to docs
later on because someone signed an NDA to write it in the first place.
You are making a very big mistake.</i>"</div><div><br></div><div>This is exactly what has happened with SiS ! Sorry, you're terribly mistaken here. <br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Daniel Shaw <daniel.shaw@point-oh.net><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> LUGM Discuss Mailing List <discuss@lugm.org> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, 4 January 2012, 13:35<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [lugm.org] the importance of hardware documentation<br> </font> <br>On 4 January 2012 10:23, Loganaden Velvindron <<a ymailto="mailto:gnukid1@yahoo.co.uk"
href="mailto:gnukid1@yahoo.co.uk">gnukid1@yahoo.co.uk</a>> wrote:<br><br>> I'm sick of wading through linux source code to get clues about how some<br>> crappy piece<br>> of IDE controller is supposed to work. IDE is OLD technology, what's the use<br>> of locking<br>> documentation ? SiS, Broadcom and the other stupid manufacturers should stop<br>> behaving<br>> like a bunch of idiots and just put hardware docs on FTP like realtek, & VIA<br>> do.<br><br>You are absolutely right!<br><br>> The large open source vendors<br>> (Linux, OpenSolaris ?, and freebsd) do not push for hardware documentation to be<br>> available.<br><br>However, this is where I disagree. Perhaps not all vendors push and<br>perhaps the ones that do, do no do so hard enough. But many Linux<br>vendors are aware of this issue and do make some effort.<br><br>In any event, agree or disagree, my suggested course of action is to<br>vote with your
dollars or rupees: Don't buy hardware with SiS or<br>broadcom chipsets. Try to always pick the models that use Realtek,<br>Via, Intel etc.<br><br>Have a great 2012!<br><br>__________________________________________________________<br>Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM) Discuss mailing list<br>Website: <a href="http://lugm.org" target="_blank">http://lugm.org</a><br>Mailing list archive: <a href="http://lugm.org/pipermail/discuss_lugm.org/" target="_blank">http://lugm.org/pipermail/discuss_lugm.org/</a><br>Forum: <a href="http://lugm.org/forum/" target="_blank">http://lugm.org/forum/</a><br>IRC: #linux.mu on Freenode<br><br><br> </div> </div> </div></body></html>