[SunRescue] Hardware reference re-structuring ideas.

[Chris Petersen]

Michael has a good point.  Any of the data on the older, non-current sales
items could readily be generated by this group and should be considered
common knowledge. 

There's been some legal wrangling over issues like this in the past, the
basic areas where we could have problems would part numbers on current
models and any images.  Part numbering scheme have in the past from
time-to-time been considered a copyrighted bit of info, in order to prevent
cut-rate manufacturers from using the same numbers and advertising in an
improper fashion.  However, I doubt this would be the case here.  Oh, the
other area that could be trouble would be any unique content not directly
related to machine hardware specs, like compatibility tables,
troubleshooting techniques, etc.   A good parallel to this would be the car
manual business, although as I understand it these days most of the car
manual publishers have agreements with the manufacturers to cover this sort
of problem.

If we were to take this from a clean room standpoint, whomever is writing a
given section of the manual should not have an FEH out and in use.  Instead,
they should merely document their knowledge and ask for contributions for
more information.  Whenever we're in doubt, the material should be quoted
and properly attributed to source.  A basic rule of thumb:

If James Lockwood couldn't arrive at the information throught a proper
tear-down and investigation of said hardware, then document the source and
check for permission.  (Apologies to James, he's the first one who sprung to
mind).  

Applying this rule, the part numbers of common components could easily be
gathered.  Module compatibility could be tested, including ROM levels. 
However, he'd probably have to lookup the POST code table (although over
time one could reverse-engineer that as well), and perhaps some of the
module compatibity information as well.  On the other hand, since I've been
picking on the module compatibility issue, there are module compatibilities
that have been tested by people in this group that Sun would never detail in
the FEH, such as SM81s in SS10s & 20s, 32mb SIMMS in the first bank of LXs
and Classics, etc.  This constitutes original work, and could easily be
listed.  It also goes a long way to prove that the authors of the
information could have arrived at the details of this new reference without
help of an FEH, given the devotion and time.  And since everybody knows
we're a bunch of fanatics, I doubt any judge in the land would go against
us :)

In short, follow the rule of thumb and ask permission for everything else. 
Finally, as much as the less fortunate might want, we can't be seen as
trying to make this a replacement for the FEH.  That's liable to get us into
more trouble with Sun than not.  Perhaps we should include a section in the
Introduction to the new reference that delineates the differences between
our document and the Sun FEH.  We don't need to be seen as taking $$ away
from Sun, even though IMHO Sun shouldn't consider stuff like the FEH a
profit maker.  

Chris

-- 
Chris Petersen
Systems Engineer
Unigraphics Solutions Inc.		Industry Services, Mid-America Region
Email: havoc at apk.net (Personal)       petersen at ugsolutions.com (Professional)



> 
> >From what I can guess is that it should be okey to use the info from the
> FEH as long as one dous not use data out of the latest revision and latest
> models of Sun e.i. no info on the Ulta 5 etc...because those models are
> still being sold by sun..for the rest I guess one could use info for the
> older models because that info is allmost common knowledge...
> What someone could do is ask sun ones the document is written to give its
> okey on the document so to be shure no copyright infringements have been
> made.
> 
> Michael
> ---
> Michael C. Vergallen A.k.A. Mad Mike, 
> Sportstraat 28			http://www.double-barrel.be/mvergall/
> B 9000 Gent			ftp://ftp.double-barrel.be/pub/linux/
> Belgium				tel : 32-9-2227764 Fax : 32-9-2224976
> 			
> On Thu, 6 Jan 2000, Chris Petersen wrote:
> 
> > Hmm, not sure.  Bill, do you have any idea?  I know James Birdsall's been
> > spotted on list recently, and I'm sure he had similar issues when he first
> > worked on the original reference.  Most of the information in the FEH is
> > probably common knowledge on this list, so I doubt there'd be too much
> > trouble.  The big issue might be with part numbers?
> 
> 
> 
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