Re: why Target cannot change its mind

[Dimiter Popoff <tgi_earth@yahoo.com> (by way of Daniel Weaver <dan.weaver@znyx.com>)]

Rich,

>...I would love to hear an
>example of something put into the PCI spec. (or some other major industry
>spec. I guess) that was put there for the purpose of making it difficult
>for small companies to compete.

What they do most of the time is keep things secret.
An example for that is the mini-PCI spec - it was "members-only"
for longer than I cared to check, I just designed my proprietary
connector (OK, it would have been proprietary anyway for reasons
beyond PCI, but could perhaps have been closer).

The latest example of deliberatly specifying anti-small behaviour
is CPRM (not yet in ATA, for some time in SCSI/MMC); with it, in
another while the 4C will be able to prevent anyone but themselves
to design a hard drive into a product (for the time being they swear
except CPRM normal R/W will be preserved...).

And another recent example of big spending against small - Xilinx bought
the Coolruner line from Philips only to discontinue it as it was...
Now they have a new one - XPLA3, not better in terms of logic - 
for which all the programming data are secret; which it was all
about.

I cannot say I see anything deliberatly bad in the PCI spec. Some excessive
complexity might be argued - either way, though, I guess. 
Let me try anyway:
 Years ago - in 1993 - I designed a proprietary bus and put a separate
serial channel per slot to make it easier for the devices to
contain their config data and the host to control slow signals.
Something like that would have saved significant resources in PCI
interface PLDs - either nobody ever thought of it or posessing
a chip factory was something to take advantage of. 

>... though you are agreeing though you  are sort of losing me with 
>the Lenin quote...

Oops, sorry. I have  been told this quote so many times as a pupil
that I subconsciously have taken it for granted that everybody knows it.
It says: "Small private property every hour, every minute creates
capitalism." There is an emotion in the sentence, which may be less
obvious here because of my translation and some background stuff.
I tend to see this phrase at work on a scaringly global scale
today - but this is definitely not a technical PCI issue. :-)

Regards,
Dimiter

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff
Transgalactic Instruments, Gourko Str. 25 b, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
http://transgalactic.freeyellow.com
Email: tgi@bulnet.bg, tgi_earth@yahoo.com
Phone: 00359/2/9923340, 00359/2/9805997, Fax: 00359/2/9540384

To: <pci-sig@znyx.com>
From: Dimiter Popoff <tgi_earth@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: why Target cannot change its mind
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 6:10:15 +0300

>
> >Weng, the spec making process nowaday is largely a political one. If
> >everything in a spec was easy, big companies would not be able to gain
> >an advantage over their competitors by requiring small companies to
> >jump through hoops to compete, and the big companies will not back the
> >spec. The spec will then die. It is wrong, but that is the way it is.
>
>This drivel does not belong in a technical forum related to PCI.

 Do you believe this knowledge - or the lack of it - could not
influence one way or another a design approach on a purely
technical level?

Who else but designers who have been burned by stuff like that
could provide this knowledge? Where?

Dimiter