Re: "We do not support LINUX"

Leeuw van der, Tim (tim.leeuwvander@nl.unisys.com)
Thu, 2 Dec 1999 03:36:13 -0600

Well, my reaction was to send them a polite e-mail askign for some
clarification what they meant by this statement. I didn't get much of a
clarification, but I guess most people's reaction was to burn them down in
anger. In this short mail I got from them, they don't seem to be very
unreasonable people. So let's try to be constructive! :-)

--Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: Josephine Ngo [I deleted the e-mail address from this message for
privacy, but the general mailing address is sales@kingmax.com --Tim]
Sent: 01 December 1999 18:43
To: 'Leeuw van der, Tim'
Subject: RE: Linux Support?

Hello Tim,

Thank you for your email. You seem to be the only person who understand the
concept. We are trying our best.

Best Regards,

Josephine

-----Original Message-----
From: Leeuw van der, Tim [mailto:tim.leeuwvander@nl.unisys.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 1999 9:28 AM
To: 'Sales@kingmax.com'
Subject: Linux Support?

Hello,

The support-section of your website specifically states that you do not
support Linux. However, does this can be interpreted in several ways.

'Not supporting Linux' will mean that first of all, Linux drivers will not
be available from KingMax directly. I have no problems with that.

However, if others will want to develop drivers for your products under an
open-source licence, like the GPL under which Linux and the Linux PCMCIA
drivers are released, hardware specifications need to be freely available
(and not available only under NDA).

If hardware specifications are still freely available to Linux developers,
then Linux drivers for your products can be developed and be incorporated in
Linux source distributions. Your products will then be Linux compatible with
little effort from your side.

If hardware specifications are only available under NDA, the consequence is
that source code to drivers can not be released and that therefore it can be
very hard to impossible to develop reliable drivers for your products which
support all features with optimal performance. With the use of Linux growing
rapidly, this could hurt sales.

So if you do not support Linux because you do not see a valid business case
for developing Linux drivers in-house, Linux support for your products can
still be achieved by giving specifications to outside developers who are
willing to develop those drivers, provided distribution of the source code
is permitted.

If you do not wish to go that route either, and wish to keep source code to
your drivers and the technical specifications nessecary to create drivers
proprietary, the statement on your website could perhaps be clarified a bit.

With regards,

--Tim van der Leeuw

(Speaking for myself, and not on behalf of Unisys.)


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