> The law of competition, survival of the fittest would actually be on
> the side of keeping the fruit of your R&D efforst private up to a
> certain point wouldn't it ?

That must be why so many companies are going open-source.

>>> If you buy a new car, do you get a manual for the engine or the
>>> electrical system?
>> I damn well better, or I won't buy it.
> You should buy a car because you need one, not because you want to
> know how to build one ; )

That's the reason I haven't even looked into buying one.

You're also unfairly conflating knowing how it works with knowing how
to build it.

>> (b) If the Ethernet card conforms to an interface spec as widely
>>     known and documented as that of bread,
> You mean the "put the slice in your mouth" interface ?

Essentially, yes, that plus the "cut with bread knife" and "put in
toaster" and all the others.  It sounds silly, but that's because the
bread's interface is (a) far simpler and (b) far better known than the
Ethernet card's interface.

>>    [...] - but that can't be the case here, or Jason wouldn't've
>>    needed to go NDA to write a driver.
> What motivation is ther for Intel to make all this information public
> ?

None, it would appear, and that's the depressing part.  In my ideal
world, everyone would agree with me on the "I won't buy without
interface docs" point, and anyone stupid enough to try to close their
interface would find themselves without any sales.

If even a respectable fraction of the market felt as I do, there'd be
people catering to it.  Instead, the tyranny of the majority
marginalizes me to the point where I'm stuck using old hardware because
it has to get ten and fifteen years old before there's enough public
doc for it to be tolerable to me.

What, bitter?  Me?  Whatever gives you that idea?

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