Merced and an NDA

The most disturbing news in a while can be read here. Basically it says that Merced, along with I2O (hiss) will have specs released only under NDA. How does this affect Free Software? Your Milleage May Vary has a quote from FreeBSD developer Sean Eric Fagan who doubts Linux and FreeBSD will be ported. If this happens, a lot of people will jump to Alpha or maybe start buying G3's and putting Linux on them. Hope Intel changes their mind.