From: callahan@vax.oxford.ac.uk Subject: Re: Diamond and Driver Development for Unix. Date: 16 Sep 1992 14:05:43 GMT
[I include all of Ken's message since people on comp.os.linux may
not have seen it.]
In article <1992Sep15.231157.11492@zeos.com>, kgermann@zeos.com (Ken Germann) writes:
>
> As I said that I would do on behalf of the users of the 'net, I contacted
> the manager of product development at Diamond. This is the reply :
>
> There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding as to what Diamond has said
> about driver development.
Actually, on the essential point, I don't think so.
>
> First, SCO has _not_ contacted us about driver development for the
> SpeedStar 24X. Rick Camp spoke to me a number of months ago about
> Stealth drivers and was sent a card, never to be heard from again.
>
> Diamond requires a non-disclosure agreement for source code on how to
> program our programmable clock. This information would not be available
> to companies or individuals who publish the source to drivers that
> include our source code or features created by Diamond. They are
> welcome to create and distribute files in object form as long as NO
> tools to uncompile this object is provided by the author.
>
Fine. However,this does present a significant difficulty for
people who want to develop freely-distributable Unix software.
For a variety of good reasons (of which you are probably aware)
Unix software is best distributed in source form. So, the
possibility of freely-distributable binaries, while (perhaps)
sufficient to meet the needs of DOS users, isn't what we
are looking for.
> To this date, only two Unix individuals that have contacted me have been
> willing to do this. All others wanted to release source or planned on
> providing tools to uncompile the object with the driver. This is in
> direct violation of the non-disclosure agreement.
>
> Please feel free to pass this information along to the net as it seems
> there are a number of people passing along their 'view' of the situation
> without substantial facts.
>
> End of Message
>
> Please contact Diamond on any questions that you may have about this
> policy. The policy complies with a standard non-disclosure agreement
> that hardware and software developers require of their OEMS, VARs and
> business partners.
>
> CC: Jeff Orr.
> --
> Ken Germann ZZZZ EEEE OO SSS ZEOS International, Ltd.
> support@zeos.com INET Z E O O S Technical Support Dept.
> uunet!zeos!support UUCP Z EE O O SS 530 5th Ave N.W.
> 800-228-5390 VOICE Z E O O S St. Paul, MN 55112
> 612-633-7337 ZZZZ EEEE OO SSS FAX 612-633-4607
Diamond's policy may be like many others', but that's not the issue.
A policy which prevents freely-distributable source software means
that the Diamond cards are less useful to me and many of my colleagues
than they would be if they were fully documented. There are also
SCSI controllers and network cards that suffer the same problem.
Those of us who care about such things will buy other brands.
Of course it is within their right to pursue their policy.
Meanwhile, I and, I many others will take our business elsewhere, to
those companies which are actually eager to support us (which *do*
exist--viz. the stories of people getting binders of programming
information in the mail).
I don't think the misunderstandings you mention--concerning SCO
and the possibility of object-form distribution--really get
at the issue.
Michael