Will Knight, of ZDNet UK, reports that Intel today publicly released an unprecedented level of technical detail on Itanium's 64-bit non-X86 instruction set. The move represents a clear indication of the priority Intel now places on Linux and the open-source phenomenon. Unnamed sources on the embedded side of Intel are reportedly surprised by the amount of sensitive technical material released on the… company's website, but acknowledge that Linux now tops the company's list of targeted operating systems.

Knight writes . . .

“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.'”

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