From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Mar 27 8:35:49 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from et-gw.etinc.com (et-gw.etinc.com [207.252.1.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E330537B719; Tue, 27 Mar 2001 08:35:42 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dennis@etinc.com) Received: from dbsys.etinc.com (dbsys.etinc.com [207.252.1.18]) by et-gw.etinc.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA17334; Tue, 27 Mar 2001 11:36:22 GMT (envelope-from dennis@etinc.com) Message-Id: <5.0.0.25.0.20010327114516.03c4f560@mail.etinc.com> X-Sender: dennis@mail.etinc.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0 Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 11:52:08 -0500 To: John Clark , "Kenneth D. Merry" From: Dennis Subject: Re: AW: Best Gigabit ethernet for 4.x Cc: "Schmalzbauer, Harald" , hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, isp@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <3ABF93E9.23F5EA4C@teamasa.com> References: <5.0.0.25.0.20001118113245.032d3130@mail.etinc.com> <20001118150437.A15956@panzer.kdm.org> <5.0.0.25.0.20010324122812.038f4eb0@mail.etinc.com> <20010324124511.A18612@panzer.kdm.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > >Personally I hate the attitude and policies expressed by the NDA on >chips that are long out of development. I can understand it for >'new on the block' designs, as that is how competition works. But >once a chip has moved from the prototype sample mode into >full production, I think the chip manufactures should publish >publically on the web (where it is almost 'cost less' to do so) >for all implementers to have the information. > >As it is, it seems in terms of Intel and other chip manufacturers >more profitable to make 'strategic' business partnerships with >'big software houses' (for example, buying a stake in LynxOS >now LynxOS Works and Blue Cat Linux), than to let the world have >a crack at the information. In order to "secure" those "big contracts" they have to give relative assurances that the resulting boards wont be cloned, allowing others to cash in on extensive software and marketing costs of these companies. Theres no sense spending big money to establish a market if anyone can come along and take away your margins by selling cut-rate hardware. Hopefully SOME of you understand this. Its not intel worried about their chips being cloned (they have a team of international lawyers to police that), its their partners that they are protecting. At some point some of you will get it. I think the best strategy is to get intel to have a freebsd driver (as they do for linux)...which would do more for freebsd than boycotting such products as some of you have suggested. Dennis To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message