Ronald G Minnich wrote:
I'm just really glad it's on the openbios list. If this discussion had appeared on any list I own I would have had to moderate the list or filter out the offers for BIOS source or just plain reject mail from people who offered it.
Yes, I think it's a terrible thing.
Do you work for American Megatrends?
Your words reflect a certain letter sent from Billy G. to the Homebrew Computer Club in the 70's. Personally I see no harm in this.
The source code is proprietary, and has copyright notices all over it. So what? If we open up the hood of a rolls-royce and look at the way it's built, and try our best to produce a superior engine based on that knowledge...it classes as an educational exercise, man.
Personally I think it was disgusting of the makers of Award BIOS to keep their source code stored away, so that the world have to see a load of SPAM for 10 seconds every time they boot up their machine.
If it involves stealing a little code to ensure that we put an end to this nonsense, then so be it. It's better to be ruthless if you have public ends to serve, not the private ends of closed-shop, greedy little companies.
End of Line.
Gavin.