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FW: Results of "downloading compressed program images" request



Oh, right.  This worked really well for IBM in the 1980's.

Their problem was that they executed *exactly* the plan you espouse.
They opened not only the hardware (I had a PC and still have the
original IBM PC Technical Reference Manual), but also gave away the
source to the ROM BIOS.  Since the OS was available from a third party
(Microsoft), they were all but out of the PC business within four years
because of competition from clone makers.

Now, I'm not arguing that competition is bad.  I'm not arguing against
free trade.  I *am* arguing that the assets of a company are its
intellectual property, which if not protected, become worthless.  A
company has a duty to itself, and usually to its stockholders, to
protect the fruits of its investment in R&D.  The socialist approach has
been a proven failure time and time again.

-brian


>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Richard Stallman [SMTP:rms@santafe.edu]
>Sent:	Tuesday, January 20, 1998 9:03 PM
>To:	ralph_muha@ycrdi.com
>Cc:	crossgcc@cygnus.com
>Subject:	Re: Results of "downloading compressed program images" request
>
>    >>    me in many instances.  Why not give away the source code?  It is
>    >>    useless without the hardware to run it on.
>    >
>    >I think you're right--I wish that more embedded developers had this
>view.
>
>    then how do you protect a proprietary hardware design
>
>In general, if something makes it hard for people to keep the specs of
>hardware secret, I would consider that a step forward.  The
>concealment of hardware designs for PC hardware has been a great
>problem for the free software community.  I have little sympathy with
>someone who wants to keep hardware specs secret merely so as to beat
>out someone else.
>