[ On Mon, October 26, 1998 at 20:27:12 (-0500), Dennis wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: T3/T1 cards - interest 
> 
> I guess the problem with the "free" camps has always been that they think that
> anyone can write a driver and that hardware is hardware and a driver is a
> driver.

I think you missed my point entirely.  I do *not* think *anyone* can
write a driver.  I do think any organization that's writing an entire
operating system can write a driver.  Of course without a full "theory
of operation" level disclosure of the hardware such a driver may not be
able to do as much as the hardware designer originally envisioned, but
the whole thing here is about communications so without adequate
communication of ideas you can only go so far.

> You also seem to think that the object is just to "make sales", which
> is rather amatuerish as well. We have no interest in supplying general purpose
> hardware at bargain basement products to anyone with a VISA card. We
> sell a value added, full-featured product suitable for production
> environments.

So?

I think you missed my point here too.  Naturally you probably need to
make a profit from your endeavours.  All I tried to say was that doing
so is not necessarily contradictory to providing open source or
engineering documentation.  The business risks are possibly different
and the means of protecting your efforts certainly are.

> I think I've learned what I need to from this discussion. Maybe some day you'll
> understand that its beneficial for you to support 3rd party vendors, including 
> object only, because it ads capability to your OS, rather than harping on the
> source issue.

The most important distinction here is whether or not the 3rd party
vendor is selling hardware, software, or some black box that interfaces
to both the hardware and the software.

You seem to have confirmed (though not directly as I asked) that you're
selling black boxes.

In this case, as I described previously, the question isn't to what
degree the free OS benefits from allowing your support, but rather the
degree to which you can leverage your profits based on that segment of
the user base of any given free OS which might have a need (and the
ability to purchase a solution for) your product.

In this case if you see a potential for sales to a market using a free
OS then it is *YOUR* responsibility to meet the needs of that user
community, even if that means simultaneously releasing drivers for all
current releases of a given OS, free or otherwise.

In this case only *YOU* can measure the costs and benefits or
disadvantages to your company of either providing support for a given
OS, free or otherwise, or of ignoring any given OS.

In this case *YOU* must treat every OS equally from a business
perspective.

If you're feeling beat up because users of a given OS are demanding that
you support their chosen platform then do what you must.  Period.
(i.e. either tell them to bugger off, or port your driver to their OS!)

Notice *I* did not tell you what decisions and conclusions you should
arrive at.

However I do agree with *everything* everyone else has said in this
thread too.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>