Eric,

I speculate that their code is obfuscated not because anyone wrote it that 
way deliberately, but because of historical accident, i.e., their legacy.

After as few as three generations of programmers have pounded on a body of 
code, it can get ugly (as well as "obfuscated").  Only someone paid to work 
on it fulltime could possible begin to deal with it after all that.

With the linuxBIOS, you're off to a comparatively clean, fresh start.

Like I always say:  forever compatible, forever backwards.  That's the 
downfall of legacy.

But so long as they can make a buck on it, it'll be here to stay, until 
that Great Day comes when they can't hire anyone to work on it.

Or until something cheaper and better comes along.

Am I right?

---Sam

-----Original Message-----
From:   Eric W. Biederman [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent:   Thursday, October 18, 2001 11:46 AM
To:     LinuxBIOS
Subject:        Boot time ponderment.


I have wondered for the longest while why linuxBIOS can so easily be
faster than the legacy BIOS's.  And I have come up with an interesting
hypothesis.  Other BIOSs are obfuscated to prevent reverse
engineering, and to hide their secrets.  My only guess is this tangled
up code slows them down.

Eric



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