“Intel took another step toward the launch of its
next-generation chip platform Wednesday with the release of the
micro-architecture reference required to write applications for the
64-bit Itanium processor.”
“The release this morning on Intel’s web site of an
unprecedented amount of information about this non-x86 instruction
set will enable software developers to write the compilers for
Itanium without signing a non-disclosure agreement with Intel,
previously necessary to get this amount of information about Intel
processors.”
“Intel hopes that the release of this information will
particularly spur on development within the open source community
and encourage Linux developers to adopt Itanium, since open-source
developers depend on freely available information. “What
matters is that the software industry moves fast,” remarks an Intel
spokesman. “Imagine the type of motivation this would give the
Linux world.”