Re: [9fans] /sys/include/ip.h 5c(1)

[ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>]

Thinking about it a bit more ... when systems become more and more
closed, as x86 systems are becoming now, the field of innovation is
reduced to what a single company can think of -- the monopoly
provider, so to speak.

When systems become more closed, you hear stuff like this: "The
percentage of people who want to do this, compared to the number of
people who just want to buy a finished computer, is way down in the
noise.  It's a marketing / sales / ROI issue."

I can not possibly recall how many times I've heard that over the
years. Many of the companies that pushed this line the hardest are
dead now. One of the first times I heard it was DEC marketing guys
talking about Unix. They didn't like the fact that Unix discovered a
bug in the 11/70 that the DEC operating systems did not. They also
made it clear it was not going to get fixed: "you guys are not a big
market -- nobody else has this problem".

Systems that are open, as the embedded ARM-based systems are now, have
a far wider field of innovation. Nobody is making a PentiumStix or a
PentiumPlug. Nobody is doing an x86-based Oswald. You can't. You can't
learn what you need to know.

Although, mind you, the OLPC is x86-based. But, it actually proves the
point: the open source BIOS code development was supported by the
vendors: first, AMD, and second, VIA.

I understand vendor resistance to non-vendor research and innovation.
It's not a big market, never has been. But, in the end, it can come
back and burn the vendors.

ron