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The i2o Bus: A Conspiracy Against Free Software? (fwd)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 00:48:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu>
Reply-To: rre-maintainers@weber.ucsd.edu
To: rre@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: The i2o Bus: A Conspiracy Against Free Software?
Resent-Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 00:48:49 -0700 (PDT)
Resent-From: rre@weber.ucsd.edu
[This is forwarded from permission from the debian-devel mailing list.
As the RRE subscriber who forwarded it explained, "Bruce Perens is the
project leader and chair of Software in the Public Interest, the nonprofit
organization formed to support a commercial quality free distribution of
Linux." See www.debian.org.]
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The i2o Bus: A Conspiracy Against Free Software?
Bruce Perens (bruce@pixar.com)
Wed, 16 Jul 97 11:40 PDT
Check out http://www.i2osig.org/ "i2o" is a developing "non-proprietary"
standard for high-performance computer peripherals. Unfortunately, it's a
closed standard, it requires a NDA, and you need a license to develop
software for it. Their terms are:
Membership is $5000/year.
You can't develop software or hardware for it without being a member.
You can't disclose source code for your drivers.
You must stop making hardware or software for it if you lose membership.
Members can vote out other members.
The backers of this are Microsoft, Novell, Hewlet-Packard, and NETFrame.
It looks as if the i2o agreements are deliberately written to exclude free
software.
I suspect that if i2o peripherals become popular, free operating systems
will be locked out from running on PC hardware.
Please take a look at this and give me a reality check.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Debian Project Leader
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