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Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 13:00:22 +0100
From: Werner Almesberger <Werner.Almesberger@epfl.ch>
To: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@mandrakesoft.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [LONG RANT] Re: Linux stifles innovation...
Message-ID: <20010219130022.G6494@almesberger.net>
In-Reply-To: <20010219115314.A6724@almesberger.net> <Pine.LNX.3.96.1010219050514.17784G-100000@mandrakesoft.mandrakesoft.com>
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In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.1010219050514.17784G-100000@mandrakesoft.mandrakesoft.com>; from jgarzik@mandrakesoft.com on Mon, Feb 19, 2001 at 05:07:02AM -0600
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Jeff Garzik wrote:
> FWIW, -every single- Windows driver source code I've seen has been
> bloody awful.  Asking them to release that code would probably result in
> embarrassment.

Maybe a good analogy is that drivers are to hardware companies like
excrements are to living creatures: in order to stay alive, they have
to produce them, but you don't put much love into their production,
and their internals (like their development) may be a little
disgusting.

>  Same reasoning why many companies won't release hardware
> specifications...  The internal docs are bad.  Really bad.

A fair number of hardware documents I have came with "here's all the
material you'll need, but please don't show this to anyone" (but no
NDA), which is fine with me: it doesn't complicate development in any
way, and in those few cases where I really needed to share a document,
they were flexible enough to allow this.

Of course, it's better if documentation is entirely in the public too,
but considering the typical overhead of clearing a document for public
release, I can understand why companies frequently don't do it.

- Werner

-- 
  _________________________________________________________________________
 / Werner Almesberger, ICA, EPFL, CH           Werner.Almesberger@epfl.ch /
/_IN_N_032__Tel_+41_21_693_6621__Fax_+41_21_693_6610_____________________/
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