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 HAA09296 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 07:53:29 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: (from majordomo-owner@localhost) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) id HAA44780 for linux-list; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 07:52:37 -0800 (PST) mail_from (owner-linux@relay.engr.sgi.com) Received: from sgi.com (sgi.engr.sgi.com [192.26.80.37]) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (980427.SGI.8.8.8/970903.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id HAA36799; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 07:52:35 -0800 (PST) mail_from (neuroinc@unidial.com) Received: from mail.unidial.com (unidial.com [206.112.0.9]) by sgi.com (980327.SGI.8.8.8-aspam/980304.SGI-aspam: SGI does not authorize the use of its proprietary systems or networks for unsolicited or bulk email from the Internet.) via ESMTP id HAA01076; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 07:52:33 -0800 (PST) mail_from (neuroinc@unidial.com) Received: from unidial.com (root@pool-209-138-15-39.ipls.grid.net [209.138.15.39]) by mail.unidial.com (8.8.7/ntr.net 3.0.0) with ESMTP id PAA11443; Tue, 30 Mar 1999 15:52:15 GMT Message-ID: <3700EDC0.29E677A4@unidial.com> Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 15:29:04 +0000 From: Alan Hoyt X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.36 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ariel Faigon , "linux@engr.sgi.com" Subject: Re: Port to R3000 Indigo References: <199903300853.AAA52093@oz.engr.sgi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com Precedence: bulk Ariel Faigon wrote: > 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 like to avoid publishing material that's incomplete, outdated, and 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 One last question: I have an old Indigo and Indigo 2 - I am very interested and very serious about porting Linux to one of these systems. However, without detailed hardware specs. a very difficult job becomes much much harder. Can you throw a dog a bone? Are there any hardware specs. (NOT source code) that you are willing and/or capable of providing at this time to get the ball rolling- without further delays perpetrated by your legal department? Thanks - Alan Hoyt -