[Dri-devel] Re: [Xpert]Re: XFree86 NDA documentation

[Jose F. <j_r...@ya...>]

On Thu, 2002-01-31 at 17:24, Mike A. Harris wrote:
> On 30 Jan 2002, Jose Fonseca wrote:
> 
> >...
> >
> >In the comments Mike makes strong reference to join as XFree86 developer
> >as a mean to obtain NDA documentation that is shared to all XFree86
> >developers, but it was mentioned in the last IRC meeting that this is no
> >longer true.
> 
> Thats right.  XFree86.org has documentation for some pieces of 
> video hardware that was obtained under NDA, and they are not able 
> to distribute that documentation to other people freely or else 
> that pretty much negates the whole point of an NDA.
> 
> Just for clarification, NDA ==
> ....

> 
> As such, in order to obtain access to this NDA information, 
> XFree86.org requires that you become a member of XFree86.org 
> first, and agree to the XFree86.org NDA.  Once you've 
> agreed to the NDA, and have been accepted as a developer, then 
> you can access the documentation that XFree86.org has under NDA.
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> 
> In order to be accepted into the project however, you need to 
> ...
> 

(Thanks for your explanation about NDA and steps to be a XFree86
developer but I already had that understanding.)

> 
> >The fact is that the XFree86 developer page
> >(http://www.xfree.org/developer.html) makes no mention to this and I
> >would like to know if this still holds true or not.
> 
> Yes, it is still true.  Unless every vendor that has given 
> XFree86.org documentation under NDA somehow decides the NDA is no 
> longer necessary, this process is not likely to change.
> 

Perhaps I didn't explain myself. I was asking if XFree86 still gave
access to NDA information to their _members_ or if each developer had
now to get the information as a _individual_ from the hardware vendor.
Anyway you answered this question already [^higlighted^].

> Please note, that the above process does NOT get you access to 
> the documentation of all of the ATI hardware.  In order to get 
> ATI hardware documentation, you must become an ATI developer 
> relations member.  If you're not an XFree86 member however, then 
> you wont likely be accepted into ATI developer relations unless 
> you meet some other criterion.
> 

I had the impression that most of the (at least) ATI hardware 
documentation was available to XFree86 members since so many times ATI
has declined giving documentation to more people stating that same
reason [availability through the XFree86 and DRI projects]. But you seem
to say otherwise here.

> So, in summary:
> 
> ...

> 
> Out of all of the people interested in working on XFree86 or DRI, 
> I've noticed that people generally fall into two categories:
> 
> 1) People who show initiative and do stuff, working with what 
>    hardware, tools and documentation that _are_ available to 
>    them, and asking questions about problems they encounter while 
>    trying to fix a given bug or work on a piece of driver code.
> 
> 2) People who have done nothing at all, but are interested in 
>    doing so, but whom probably have not even looked at the source 
>    code, or even tried to fix any bugs, assuming that they must 
>    have the documentation first or it is not possible to 
>    contribute to anything.  Many of whom complain about lack of 
>    documentation, having to agree to NDA's and whatnot.
> 
> While #2 people often have legitimate complaints, many of the
> things I have seen people complain about are static items, at
> least for the time being.  It is generally IMHO the #1 people who
> show the most initiative, and hack away on their own, that end up
> producing results, and also end up meeting the general
> unofficial guidelines I've mentioned above.
> 
> Summary of entire email:  JUST DO IT
> 
> 

I agree with your general picture. I just want to add that its not a
black&white division between #1 and #2 people and that a good guidance
from the existing projects developers can effectively change #2 people
in #1...

Regards,

Jose Fonseca