[OpenBIOS] Intel holding back information

Ross rossio at hoeftd.reno.nv.us
Fri Aug 6 01:00:59 CEST 1999


Niklas Ekström: 

I'm running windows 95 (the latest version), and a C++ 4.5 C compiler
and I could not get the source code for the OpenBios off of the
Internet.
Can you or anyone on this list help obtain the source code? in plain
text.
Sorry about your troubles with intel  I found the best way to get
data from
is to say that you are going in the future be purchasing 20k of  the
430xx
chipset and they normally give you what you want.






//Ross


(HANWE)

----------
: From: Niklas Ekström <t97nek at student.tdb.uu.se>
: To: openbios at elvis.informatik.uni-freiburg.de
: Subject: Re: [OpenBIOS] Intel holding back information
: Date: Saturday, August 07, 1999 5:06 AM
: 
: On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Ron Tsur wrote:
: > I would not be subscribing to this mailing list if I would not
share 
: > your interest in open source and free OpenBIOS.  I don't think
that you
: > are stupid, but your attitude sucks, because you attack the very
people
: > that are trying to help you.
: 
: Yes you're right. I've gotten really frustrated talking to
braindead
: Intel reps (most of them atleast), who just points me in some other
: direction. So the last thing I needed to hear was "have you tried
: developer.intel.com?". Anyway, I'm sorry about that, it wasn't you
I was
: barking at. (However, I do ask that people read through the
question
: before answering it, so they don't answer the wrong question...)
: 
: > If you read my letter carefully, you will see that I offered you
some real
: > help.  I can probably get the documents you need at any time. 
However, I
: > cannot distribute them legally without the owners (Intel)
consent.
: 
: Yesterday I got a mail from a guy at my local Intel distributor,
where he
: explains why Intel didn't give away the specs (atleast what he
thinks). He
: said that the reason is probably that if Intel gives out the specs,
they
: also have to give support and because of that they don't want to
give it
: out to just anyone. But he also said that if I could prove that
Intel
: would sell more chips (probably >5k/year, the guy said), they would
almost
: certainly give out the specs. However, I'd says it's highly
unlikely that
: people (atleast that many) would buy an Intel machine just to run
this
: BIOS on it...
: 
: Maybe if I can convince them that I, or anyone I give the specs to,
will
: not require support for it?
: 
: > Now, comes my question.  Why do you need Intel's BIOS specs.  If
you are
: > working on a truly OPEN software product, isn't it better to take
the
: > "cleanroom" approach?
: 
: Ofcourse that is an alternative, but then I would have to get the
: information that is available in the BIOS specs from some other
place (or
: possible reverse engineer or just guess etc) and I feel that it
would be
: unnessecary difficult, compared to just having all information in
one
: specification. Ofcourse I wouldn't change my BIOS design because of
: something that I read in the BIOS spec.
: 
: > Thanks for listening,
: 
: Thank you for helping! :)
: 
: / Niklas
: 
: -
: To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at freiburg.linux.de
: with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message
-
To unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo at freiburg.linux.de
with 'unsubscribe openbios' in the body of the message



More information about the openbios mailing list