[OpenBIOS] award bios source code - please send requests

[Chris Maresca]

On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Gavin Robert Brewer wrote:

> 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. 

Well, the fact it is, both Bill and Award have more than enough money to
sue this project out of existance.  Just look at what happened to
KIllustrator just for using a similar name, and that was just with a
letter from a lawyer*.
 
> 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.

That may be what you think, and I don't disagree.  But that's not the way
the law works.  To think otherwise is just naive.

> 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. 

The fact is that Award work hard and spent lots of money writing and
developing their code.  As projects like this and linuxbios show, it's
non-trivial to develop such a product.  I think they have a right to make
money from stuff they've spend years building.  

Chris.

* KIllustrator's site was shut down, the author had to spend huge amounts
of time negociating with lawyers and wound up with a $2000 bill.

-- chris maresca
      internet systems architect -- www.chrismaresca.com

"linux, only up 138 days, because california has flaky power... "


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