In this instance, though, the protocol is more valuable than the software. If they released documentation on the Firewire protocol, likely somebody could write

In this instance, though, the protocol is more valuable than the software. If they released documentation on the Firewire protocol, likely somebody could write the software to talk to it fairly quickly. Hardware protocols are almost always the simplest thing that could possibly work--and generally simpler than that. As one myself, I assure you that hardware people are LAZY. :) (In reality, the issue is that hardware is really difficult to change and expensive to develop. Consequently, you want your hardware to be simple and robust while pushing as much complexity as you can up to the software stack.) Or, even more importantly, if they released some schematics and documentation, that Firewire port could be replaced by an Ethernet port. The sticking point is likely the word "documentation". I suspect that "documentation" doesn't exist anymore--if it ever did.