Re: Linux/IA-64 (Merced)

H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
6 Mar 1999 23:04:11 GMT


Followup to: <Pine.LNX.3.95.990306223949.703A-100000@localhost>
By author: Gerard Roudier <groudier@club-internet.fr>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Times have changed. Seems Linux folk is now talking about NDAs without
> any flame. Note that I don't care at all and I haven't ever signed any
> NDA.
> I just was thinking about what a port of an O/S requires and how much
> knowledge is necessary to really understand the arch dependant code and
> drivers in order to provide a good port rather that some bag of hacks for
> such a project.
>

I think the big difference is that you can't *get* an IA64 chip
without the NDA (or even with it, AFAIK). If IA64 was available
*today* as a retail item then it would be a *very* different issue.
Note also that most of the people working on IA64 for Linux seems to
be at companies where one can reasonably expect it to be part of their
job, which again changes things quite substantially.

-hpa

-- 
"Linux is a very complete and sophisticated operating system.  There
are, and will be, large numbers of applications available for it."
    -- Paul Maritz, Group Vice President for Platforms And Applications,
       Microsoft Corporation [Reference at: http://www.kernel.org/~hpa/ms.html]

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