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On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:21:23 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Real money comes from hardware sales, though; supporting (or allowing
>> others to write support for) more platforms = more product sales.
>
> Yes. That's why (for example) Sun gives away Java.
Yes, and I'm happier now that the JDK is mostly ported to openJDK - that
means 64-bit Java plugin for FF on Linux now.
> However, that doesn't hold true when the device drivers include much of
> the innovation in the hardware. As soon as you explain exactly how it
> works, someone else can rip off your design. See, for example, "PC
> Clone".
True, but at the same time, that information being reverse-engineered by
Compaq really opened up the PC market; it also commoditized (or helped
commoditize) PC hardware and reduced the costs so most people could
afford one. Or two. Or ten. ;-)
Which in turn has moved PC sales from a low-volume high-margin sales
model to a low-margin high-volume sales model. Seems to have worked out
fairly well for most PC manufacturers.
Eventually, clean room reverse-engineering would expose those internals
anyways, and arguably the type of process Compaq followed isn't something
IBM could have sued over - the guys developing the Compaq BIOS were
working entirely from specs drawn up by the guys who were looking at how
the BIOS worked.
Jim
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