[hcflinux] Re: [hsflinux] What about FREE Sortware and people colaboration!?!?

[Dana Lacoste]

I think it's significant to note the following :

On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 10:05, Marc Boucher wrote:

> 1) Linuxant isn't Conexant. Conexant is a semiconductor company 
> producing the modem chipsets, primarily for use with Windows.
> Linuxant is an independent company trying to make this technology
> available to Linux users.


If you want to get upset about not having free drivers,
you have the following options available to you :

1 - Complain to Conexant for not making those drivers
2 - Buy a non-Conexant product
3 - Make your own driver

As Linuxant has given us a driver without which we could not
use our modems, I have to give Marc a lot of thanks : he's
managed to get a driver available to the Linux community that
works and lets us use hardware that we would otherwise not
be able to use.  He's taken a rather unco-operative company
(Conexant) and made a driver available to us that lets us
use (some rather crappy) hardware in our chosen OS.

To give you some background on my usage :
I needed a 3.3v PCI compatible modem that would work in Linux.
That was an absolute requirement : free vs. pay-for was not
an issue.

Now I'm able to use the new Universal ZPX model from MultiTech
and I don't need to use the Linuxant stuff any more, but I would
have been more than willing to pay for it : Marc has to earn a
living too, don't you think?

I liken this issue to that of www.4front-tech.com.
They produce, BY FAR, the best Unix sound drivers available.
Period.
Easy to use, but not free.  The only way to make an Audigy 2
work reliably under FreeBSD though.  If you're under a situation
where the hardware vendor who supplies the drivers won't supply
the drivers for the OS you use (this is a valid reason to get mad
at a hardware vendor) then don't get mad at the only person who
_will_ work with you and _will_ supply the drivers to let you
use that hardware!

Thanks for the work, Marc.  I won't be using a Conexant chipset
modem any time soon, but that's their fault, not yours.

Dana Lacoste
Ottawa, Canada