From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Oct 6 12:16:38 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA23567 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 12:16:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from xylan.com (postal.xylan.com [208.8.0.248]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA23560 for ; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 12:16:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from mailhub.xylan.com by xylan.com (8.8.7/SMI-SVR4 (xylan-mgw 2.2 [OUT])) id MAA25534; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 12:15:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from utah.XYLAN.COM by mailhub.xylan.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (mailhub 2.1 [HUB])) id MAA14130; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 12:15:01 -0700 Received: from softweyr.com by utah.XYLAN.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (xylan utah [SPOOL])) id NAA25885; Tue, 6 Oct 1998 13:15:00 -0600 Message-ID: <361A6C34.4AD93BAE@softweyr.com> Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 13:15:00 -0600 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2.6-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Brett Glass CC: Jerry Hicks , FreeBSD Chat Subject: Re: RMS on UDI References: <4.1.19981006085422.04379a10@mail.lariat.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Brett Glass wrote: > > At 12:03 AM 10/6/98 -0400, Jerry Hicks wrote: > > >So what is the attitude around FreeBSD toward UDI? Not the concept, which > >nearly everyone agrees is a Good Thing, but this particular set of proposals > >from SCO, Intel, et al. > > > >I'm more than a little paranoid about I20 and suspicious of UDI too... > > As well we should be. However, the UDI spec is being distributed for free, > without a demand for large fees, and there really don't seem to be strings > attached. It seems sort of like the AT&T ABI specs in this regard. If so, > it's a Good Thing. If anything, it seems more like UDI is a plot created by SCO to get us "Open Source" developers to write device drivers for THEM. I personally have NO feelings whatsoever about this; anyone silly enough to use SCO when FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux will ALL run on the same hardware deserve what they get. I share Brett's (and RMS' -- imagine THEM agreeing on something!) reservations about Intel's motivation in this. I think most contributors to the free software community feel that commercial organizations should not benefit from free software unless they give something back. If, however, this encourages Intel or any other hardware company to be more open with specifications and other documentation required to write drivers, they WILL be giving something back. If Intel undertakes to develope UDI drivers for the various hardware products they produce, this will benefit FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, SCO, Sun, and anyone else who uses UDI drivers. It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft tries to horn in on this and sway the UDI spec into agreeing with NT as well. There's somebody to be leery of, brothers and sisters. -- Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket? Wes Peters +1.801.915.2061 Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message