From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 15 06:53:56 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 530E11065675 for ; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:53:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from perrin@apotheon.com) Received: from outbound-mail-120.bluehost.com (outbound-mail-120.bluehost.com [69.89.18.6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 1ADF68FC20 for ; Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:53:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from perrin@apotheon.com) Received: (qmail 12963 invoked by uid 0); 15 Dec 2008 06:53:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO box183.bluehost.com) (69.89.25.183) by outboundproxy3.bluehost.com with SMTP; 15 Dec 2008 06:53:56 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=default; d=apotheon.com; h=Received:Received:Date:From:To:Subject:Message-ID:Mail-Followup-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To:User-Agent:X-Identified-User; b=kI33SMBZTRLZ8VKe4uOhrNUGgXSpzpHO2ILhALGNLcG+eOvfW/86lTArE/lbZ/JStketucRVdRERqyBDZb5fbuomClDW+EtQ9ybJVlsCoNk0u8yYSWJMGHQeBRZFZ2Oj; Received: from c-24-8-180-234.hsd1.co.comcast.net ([24.8.180.234] helo=kokopelli.hydra) by box183.bluehost.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1LC7L1-0000Od-3o for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:53:55 -0700 Received: by kokopelli.hydra (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:53:27 -0700 Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:53:27 -0700 From: Chad Perrin To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20081215065327.GM5527@kokopelli.hydra> Mail-Followup-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <20081212002813.GD32300@kokopelli.hydra> <20081211170011.777236f8@gom.home> <20081212015814.GB32982@kokopelli.hydra> <20081212120437.B3687@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20081212181258.GE36348@kokopelli.hydra> <20081212203202.H4803@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20081212150228.520ad7f8@scorpio> <20081212212552.GF37185@kokopelli.hydra> <1229230200.18610.87.camel@laptop2.herveybayaustralia.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="Cqq5NadOW2RfLMJ/" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1229230200.18610.87.camel@laptop2.herveybayaustralia.com.au> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i X-Identified-User: {737:box183.bluehost.com:apotheon:apotheon.org} {sentby:smtp auth 24.8.180.234 authed with ren@apotheon.org} Subject: Re: Why FreeBSD not popular on hardware vendors X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:53:56 -0000 --Cqq5NadOW2RfLMJ/ Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 02:50:00PM +1000, Da Rock wrote: > On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 14:25 -0700, Chad Perrin wrote: > >=20 > > I think he's trying to say that open source drivers would be preferable, > > and to develop them we'd need the hardware specs so we'd have a target > > toward which to develop drivers. Of course, "preferable" is my choice = of > > term -- he seems to be more of the opinion that anything that isn't > > strictly open source should just be shunned, out of hand. While it wou= ld > > be nice if that was a practical option, it isn't really, at this point. > >=20 >=20 > Perhaps he'd be more at home in the Fedora community which are adamant > about that too... :P Perhaps so. OpenBSD is pretty adamant about that, too -- more so than Fedora, I think. In fact, the OpenBSD project seems to be the most adamant open source OS project, about keeping everything open (except the format of the installer, for some inconsistent as hell damned reason), that I've seen. > >=20 > > Actually, patents are publicly documented by definition -- we're just n= ot > > *allowed* to use it, once it has been patented, without permission. The > > sort of thing they don't want to divulge is trade secrets, which you > > meantioned -- not patents, which you also mentioned. For some reason, > > though, some hardware vendors seem inclined to use patents as an excuse > > for keeping secrets, which never made much sense to me. > >=20 > > IANAL, though I read about the law from time to time. >=20 > Ok, so moving forward on this point: How exactly does this help in > developing drivers for FreeBSD? Patents are ideas- right? So wouldn't > this mean that it would still require "guessing" and estimation of what > should happen and how to do it? The problem with open source driver development is lack of documented implementation details and the illegality of reproducing anything covered by patent -- not lack of patent documentation. >=20 > You also mention that they're publicly accessible- how? Whats the portal > and how would you search for required device? I don't do patent searches regularly, but I'd probably start with the US Patent Office site. Okay, I did a Google search for USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office), clicked the first link, clicked through a menu item, and found this page: http://patft.uspto.gov/ Unfortunately, anything covered by a patent, as I hinted above, is verboten. --=20 Chad Perrin [ content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] Quoth Martin Luther: "Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?" --Cqq5NadOW2RfLMJ/ Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAklF/ucACgkQ9mn/Pj01uKWb4gCdFcO8XtV2XoMAq4omEa6pQQcW lqIAn2NUITn80eSc19414ECJCKOlvg3Y =EtRY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Cqq5NadOW2RfLMJ/--