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Why Don't Companies Release Specs?
Mhrmnhrm asks: "With the recent activism by the OpenBSD crew focusing on release of documentation from the likes of Adaptec, Intel, and others, I'm left to wonder: why do companies insist on believing that by denying access to the specs, they somehow gain an advantage? It's not like telling a programmer how to communicate with the underlying hardware is going to tell them how it (the PCB/silicon) was designed, so why make this information secret?"
Goody for you. When you and your friends who think like you are enough of a market share for them to care, their practices will change. Have fun.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I'm not writing documentation, but seldom help with some technical details and help with translations.
Guys, just to understand the problem you have try first write something. Writing good documentation would require someone who can think straight and clearly. And as you can imaging if company got such guy/girl - s/he will be busy doing product itself, rather than documentation. That's first.
Second. On PC market change of technologies occurs every half of year or something like that. Writing documentation, getting thru all bureaucracy for confidential document to be released will be precisely about this half of year. In other words, when documentation is ready - it is already outdated. You can btw notice that industries with longer release cycles normally end-up with decent documentation - they have time and money. Having no money you cannot afford longer release cycle. Telcos are good example of that. Industrial automation is another one.
So PC industry is sort of its own worst enemy. Tight competition force producers to save where possible - e.g. optional component such as documentation. If you have some bright heads, producer can manage to update product line more often - edging against competitors - but again bright heads will be busy with product release, rather than its documentation.
Having dedicated personnel to handle documentation is just expensive.
P.S. One more problem is when product is partially based on some licensed third party development. Most small producers have to license things, since they cannot develop everything in house. Than it happens that documentation ends up with hell a lot of copy'n'pasting from third party one. To release that you have to get a permission from third party: but in most situations you will find out that third party has licensed some parts itself. In the end no-one just want to risk releasing the documentation, especially in litigious U.S.: most companies when finding their parts in someone's else released products may start asking for fees. With all consequences. Hiring experienced attorney for going thru all this licensing mess - and getting clearance from all involved parties - will cost a lot money, most producers just not able to afford.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I went into McDonalds last week and ordered prime rib with a side of potatoes. They wouldn't sell it to me.
When i go into a restraunt, i expect to order and get whatever i want. If they don't serve what i want, i won't eat there. Period. They just lost business from me. I know at least 20 people who tried to order steak from McDonalds and they wouldn't offer it, that's not counting the hundreds of people online who want all kinds of stuff that McDonald's doesn't sell.
I'm not saying that McDonalds should forsake thier demographics, target market, or any plans they had, but at least allow restraunt-goers a chance to eat whatever they want.
You've clearly never had to write a driver for hardware that's produced down the hall
In addition to the cost of producing it, there's other issues. Did the company license some IP for their internal use? If so, can that IP be documented and sent out to third parties? Someone has to check to make sure the relevant legal contracts are followed. Next, did we develop some new and novel way of doing something that's covered by a patent? Is it ours our someone else's. Fear of lawsuits from third parties often drives a company to disclose as little as possible. On the 'simpler' devices, much of the information necessary to write a driver may be novel ways of, for example, encoding something in software that might otherwise be done in hardware. Sometimes these tricks may save lots of money for the hardware company who can sell modems $5 cheaper than their competitors. Why make it easy for them to understand your cleverness?
Finally there's good, old fashioned secrecy. Does Macy's tell Gimble's, as the old (now somewhat dated) adage goes. The idea here is that your competitors should have as difficult a time as inventing something as you did, and any hints or short-cuts that you can give them may eat into your profits. Maybe they make a hardware board that's compatible with your driver, this cutting the cost of their development time since they don't have to do the software. Who knows how this information will come back to bite you.
All of these effects on the bottom line are seen as swamping any increase in hardware/software sales to the open source crowd. Not that they are right about this (or wrong for that matter), just how they think.
Warner
The problem here though, is that McDonalds has never made the impression to anyone that they sell steak. Its like asking Adobe for full documentation on Windows; they have no idea.
Wouldnt full specifications from McDonalds actually be them telling you exactly what is in each Quarter-Pounder with Cheese, and exactly what happens behind the scenes when they cook it?
I dont know about you, but I think those are some specifications that are better left unreleased.