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?"

Comments

Because they're stupid?

[Spy der Mann]

For one, I really suspect they presume (or seem to), the implementation details can be deduced from the API's. Or at least that someone might reverse engineer their hardware, making one that's similar and compatible.

I don't know.