Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!oddjob!mimsy!chris
From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: DEC hardware manuals
Message-ID: <11990@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jun 88 14:37:32 GMT
References: <9312@eddie.MIT.EDU> <467@aiva.ed.ac.uk> <9341@eddie.MIT.EDU> <1105@unmvax.unm.edu>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 20

In article <1105@unmvax.unm.edu> mike@turing.unm.edu (Michael I. Bushnell)
writes:
>...  DEC has a competitor for Ultrix, but the response has not been to
>improve Ultrix, it has been to keep hardware manuals secret so UCB
>can't write drivers.

Unless there is a conspiracy of which I am unaware (which is of course
possible), this is not why DEC clings to their hardware documentation
so tightly.  Rather, it is in a (laughably ineffective) attempt to keep
hardware vendors like Emulex from gleaning some of `their' market share.
From my vantage point, the only thing this policy gets DEC is lost
sales, because I recommend against products for which detailed manuals
are not available.

(Ah well: we already have our revenge :-) , as the RISC machines sweep
past DEC while DEC's marketing dithers.  If they had brought out their
RISC [nicknamed Titan, I believe] four years ago, they might have the
lead.)
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris