Re: Re: [XFree86] Call for Beta Testers - SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux!

Alan Hourihane <[email protected]> wrote:

> > AFAIK XFree86 has and always will be open to proprietry developers using 
> > and contributing to the code. If XFree86 has plans to act like a GPL 
> > project, we might as well take our technology elsewhere.
> 
> Hey, my point being if people switch to your binary drivers and
> people end up doing more testing for them - how on earth are we
> going to get open source drivers written and tested here? 

Recall about three years ago that SciTech made an offer to the XFree86 
group that if there was interest in switching to our device driver model, 
that we would donate our code to XFree86. That offer was turned down, so 
we continued down our current path. We have actually already released 
under dual proprietry/GPL licensing the SciTech SNAP SDK, and are about 
to switch that over to LGPL. We have also made a committement to release 
our DDK under a similar license (probably LGPL also) with optional 
proprietry licensing.

In essence we are trying to fit into the Open Source community, but we 
also understand that at some point we have to have something we can sell. 
If we simply Open Sourced everything, we would have no added value 
(ignoring the fact we can't Open Source most of our drivers as they are 
developed under NDA). So we are trying to open up as much as we can while 
still retaining some kind of competitive advantage. One thing we have 
also been considering is a commitment to Open Source drivers for older 
hardware provided we can get NDA releases from the companies who made 
those products. Our competetive advantage really lies in the tools we can 
use to bring our drivers to market very quickly (our Intel Springdale 
driver for instance was built and certified in a single afternoon, about 
4 months before we ever saw any specs from Intel!).

> We already have limited resources, in people testing and writing
> code and this would only reduce them further. 

Release early, release often. That is the only Open Source model IMHO 
that functions well at solving hardware compatibility problems. A better 
solution is what we do (certified binary device drivers with heavy handed 
certification and testing tools), but if you require sticking to an Open 
Source model and bulk compiling all the code for every release, doing 
releases early and often is the only solution you have.

> Anyway, I thought you had a QA team ?

Yes, of course we have a QA team. But as much as our QA team can test, 
there will also be edge cases that can slip through and a group of public 
beta testers is always a good idea.

> Oh, And I wasn't speaking for the Core Team either, this is my
> personal opinion. 

Ok.

Regards,

---
Kendall Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
SciTech Software, Inc.
Phone: (530) 894 8400
http://www.scitechsoft.com

~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~