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Re: 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:
Is it patented? What does Intel say about it? After all, it is based on
Intel's system calls.
>
> Membership is $5000/year.
> You can't develop software or hardware for it without being a member.
But it probably means that if an OS has built-in support for this I20
stuff, than software written for that specific OS need not pay many if they
use I20 devices. Or so I understood from the site.
> 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.
>
"Free software" as in the "Free Software Foundation" (i.e. GNU) or software
that is distributed with no cost? Well, it certainly does not favour the
GNU's "Source code must be included" approach. Nevertheless, drivers for
free OSes could still be sold by a third party, or even distributed free of
charge, if the other members of i2o-sig allow it.
The I20 FAQ said that "all UNIX endors are welcome to join." The question
is if "UNIX vendors" also refer to the organizations behind
freely-distributed UNIX-compatible OSes?
I don't think that many Hardware vendors would like to be tyranized by such
an organization. So, if I20 does so, they may establish their own rival
standard (such a stuff may be done anyway, perhaps by Intel or IBM).
Also, sooner or later, the system calls which are used to utilize the I20
will be debugged out and published, outside the I2O members circle. If
people start writing drivers using such non-I20-SIG originated code, I'm
not quite sure that there is any legal measure the I20 members can do to
prevent it.
>I suspect that if i2o peripherals become popular, free operating systems
>will be locked out from running on PC hardware.
>
Possibly, But I find it hard to believe that all HW vendors will use _only_
I20 for the I/O (or other) devices. (from the reasons I mentioned above).
Well, I am not an expert in the Computer SW/HW market or in the various
legal and technical details in that field, so all I've said here is my
evaluations and nothing more.
Shlomi Fish
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