SEO

Greetings all,

Going through my local 3Ware distributor, I have requested API
documentation for 3Ware's RAID cards. My distributor has responded that
3Ware may be willing to provide the API documentation, but I would need to
sign an NDA first.

Obviously this is contrary to OpenBSD's goals and said docs would be
almost useless to us if their distribution was bound by NDA. At the same
time I'm sure that if I respond to their NDA request with a straight "that's
not acceptable" they will not hesitate to slam the door in my face,
regardless of whether my foot is in it or not.

My appeal is to those of you with more experience dealing with this
sort of situation than myself. I think it's best to explain to them
concretely and professionaly why an NDA on documentation is not in the
project's interest, and why it is in their interest to support OpenBSD with
documentation in the creation of a unified hardware-independant RAID
management architecture. I think it's also worth mentioning (by name) their
competitors that have already cooperated with the project.

Anyone out there with 3Ware cards (or planning on purchasing them),
I'd like to hear from you.

I'm more than happy to put together a response to them myself, but
I'd like your feedback first. Thanks very much for your assistance.

---
Blake Willis
Network Engineer
blake@2112.net