From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (cthulhu.engr.sgi.com [192.26.80.2]) by neteng.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id AAA05628 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 00:53:51 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: (from majordomo-owner@localhost) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) id AAA06420 for linux-list; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 00:53:07 -0800 (PST) mail_from (owner-linux@relay.engr.sgi.com) Received: from oz.engr.sgi.com (oz.engr.sgi.com [150.166.42.13]) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id AAA33855; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 00:53:04 -0800 (PST) mail_from (ariel@oz.engr.sgi.com) Received: (from ariel@localhost) by oz.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) id AAA52093; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 00:53:03 -0800 (PST) From: ariel@oz.engr.sgi.com (Ariel Faigon) Message-Id: <199903300853.AAA52093@oz.engr.sgi.com> Subject: Re: Port to R3000 Indigo To: neuroinc@unidial.com (Alan Hoyt) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 00:53:03 -0800 (PST) Cc: linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (SGI/Linux mailing list) In-Reply-To: <37000EE1.6C336FD0@unidial.com> from "Alan Hoyt" at Mar 29, 99 11:38:10 pm Reply-To: ariel@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (Ariel Faigon) Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc. X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com Precedence: bulk :Two questions: : :Does this mean that you are going to be posting the hardware specifications :for the Indigo 2, O2, etc.. (i.e. SGI's more recent systems) on your web :server for public access, or will this information be disseminated through :controlled channels? : :Also, if you are going to post the specs - when will they be available? : :Just curious, since HP publicly released some detailed hardware specs for :their systems in PDF format to assist their Linux porting project - it's very :nice. : :Thanks : : - Alan Hoyt - : Alan, I believe this was referred to by Bill Earl in an earlier post. Clearly, this needs further explanation. Since the interfaces with SGI proprietary hardware were never meant to be public, the only documentation you can really rely on to be accurate and reliable is the (working) IRIX source code. We would really like to avoid publishing material that's incomplete, outdated, and turns out to be more confusing than it is worth. Now, if it were entirely in my hands, I would have gladly published some source code. The problem is much more complex than that. The IRIX source code includes licensed code from many external commercial sources, AT&T SVR4, Sun, Xerox, etc. each surrounded by its own complex licensing terms, so the lawyers need to look into this lest SGI becomes liable by just making some "innocent goodwill" happen. I know it sounds lame, and I as much as anyone, hate this, but this is reality, and it isn't simple as it may appear to some. It requires a lot of legal (inspection and clearance) + engineering (sanitize and clean up code) time which I'm not sure we can afford on a global scale. The good news is that SGI is clearly putting much more emphasis these days on developing hardware that is much more standard and opening more and more source code (after legal has looked into it and approved it). Everything we have been doing in the past year on the Linux front makes this clear that this is where we're going. I would like to request a bit of patience and support... You are preaching to the choir here. -- Peace, Ariel From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: From: ariel@oz.engr.sgi.com (Ariel Faigon) Message-ID: <199903300853.AAA52093@oz.engr.sgi.com> Subject: Re: Port to R3000 Indigo Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 00:53:03 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <37000EE1.6C336FD0@unidial.com> from "Alan Hoyt" at Mar 29, 99 11:38:10 pm Reply-To: ariel@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (Ariel Faigon) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com To: Alan Hoyt Cc: SGI/Linux mailing list Message-ID: <19990330085303.Z_VeJODfYDLy32-onFo7NjUee7VNfKJKs9pJAQNAEvE@z> :Two questions: : :Does this mean that you are going to be posting the hardware specifications :for the Indigo 2, O2, etc.. (i.e. SGI's more recent systems) on your web :server for public access, or will this information be disseminated through :controlled channels? : :Also, if you are going to post the specs - when will they be available? : :Just curious, since HP publicly released some detailed hardware specs for :their systems in PDF format to assist their Linux porting project - it's very :nice. : :Thanks : : - Alan Hoyt - : Alan, I believe this was referred to by Bill Earl in an earlier post. Clearly, this needs further explanation. Since the interfaces with SGI proprietary hardware were never meant to be public, the only documentation you can really rely on to be accurate and reliable is the (working) IRIX source code. We would really like to avoid publishing material that's incomplete, outdated, and turns out to be more confusing than it is worth. Now, if it were entirely in my hands, I would have gladly published some source code. The problem is much more complex than that. The IRIX source code includes licensed code from many external commercial sources, AT&T SVR4, Sun, Xerox, etc. each surrounded by its own complex licensing terms, so the lawyers need to look into this lest SGI becomes liable by just making some "innocent goodwill" happen. I know it sounds lame, and I as much as anyone, hate this, but this is reality, and it isn't simple as it may appear to some. It requires a lot of legal (inspection and clearance) + engineering (sanitize and clean up code) time which I'm not sure we can afford on a global scale. The good news is that SGI is clearly putting much more emphasis these days on developing hardware that is much more standard and opening more and more source code (after legal has looked into it and approved it). Everything we have been doing in the past year on the Linux front makes this clear that this is where we're going. I would like to request a bit of patience and support... You are preaching to the choir here. -- Peace, Ariel