You're right. There's also a lot of 'third-party' business around
chips that we could say are making money around others work.
I think that these kind of companies are to be respected when they
have done substantial work for themselves(original ideas)
 Fortunately is not difficult to identify these 'fishy' copycats
companies.
My $0.02.

> hmmm... did you guys see the "Pirates of Silicon Valley" movie recently
> at TNT? it is the "possible" story of Microsoft and Apple companies...
> there you can see Steve Jobs receiving "for free" the user graphics
> interface (GUI) from Xerox (including the "mouse interface") what made
> Bill Gates very nervous (since Bill had only DOS, well, he didn't, but
> anyway he sold it to IBM...and then went to find out who had it...
> funny) and magically after few business agreements between Microsoft and
> Apple, where Microsoft would produce some software to Apple (First
> MacIntosh), Microsoft should gain access to Apple "windows" to do the
> job, and then again, magically, Japan Nippon Electric Corporation (NEC)
> came up with a nice Windows Machine... and it was not Steve who sold to
> them...and at the movie Bill made that flat face that means "and so
> what?"...<g>... it means what?  That we can not purchase Microsoft
> Windows anymore because it "could" be pirate too? or even NEC machines?
>
> Now... I am totally neutral... <g>, but, suppose I take a Atmel 80 Mips
> RISC core, costing $1.80 a piece in 100k quantity, build an imbedded
> package with a PIC code interpreter, seal it in a DIP28 package and sell
> it as a 100% PIC compatible unit for only $2.30, and as a benefit it
> still running at 30Mips <g>... what is it? Piracy? hmmm...
>
> Second point... If I write a book about poems... <g>...yeah, well, but
> in real I do not copy them from the original authors, but instead I just
> point their books and pages... my book would be like an index, without a
> single poem word copied from the authors... people could buy my book
> because they would have a pointer where to read those poems... is it
> piracy? ... because I am doing money with other people's work!!!
>
> those lines on the floor are not very well traced, isn't?
>
>
------------------------------------
netQ <netquake@innocent.com>
http://virtuaweb.com/picprog
"Home of amateur PIC programmers..."

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