Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on December 08, 2006 06:09 AM
"Why would anyone spend 7 years on this???..."
Good question. Because motherboard manufacturers don't like to release documentation, that's why it took seven years. This problem of documentation is discussed in the article. On the other hand, it has for at least three years worked quite well on several AMD-based motherboards made by Tyan, because AMD was willing to not only provide a developer, but also release documentation.
Also, remember that the original IBM PC BIOS was much smaller and way less complicated back in 1983 than today's multi-megabyte BIOS's today. Therefore, Phoenix simply had considerably less to reverse-engineer, and even then, it took them a couple of years.
Now, why would someone be willing to spend seven years on a F/OSS project? I dunno, ask RMS, Linus, Theo, or Tridge; they've been spending lots more time than seven years writing Free Software. Remember that GNU/Linux itself didn't really start becoming useable outside the hacker community until about 1998, and even then, it was still a little rough for non-techies.
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Re:I Really Hate To See This.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 08, 2006 06:09 AMGood question. Because motherboard manufacturers don't like to release documentation, that's why it took seven years. This problem of documentation is discussed in the article. On the other hand, it has for at least three years worked quite well on several AMD-based motherboards made by Tyan, because AMD was willing to not only provide a developer, but also release documentation.
Also, remember that the original IBM PC BIOS was much smaller and way less complicated back in 1983 than today's multi-megabyte BIOS's today. Therefore, Phoenix simply had considerably less to reverse-engineer, and even then, it took them a couple of years.
Now, why would someone be willing to spend seven years on a F/OSS project? I dunno, ask RMS, Linus, Theo, or Tridge; they've been spending lots more time than seven years writing Free Software. Remember that GNU/Linux itself didn't really start becoming useable outside the hacker community until about 1998, and even then, it was still a little rough for non-techies.
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