In article <stoughtn.91.000FA47D@ccmail.gsm.uci.edu> stoughtn@ccmail.gsm.uci.edu writes:

   In article <1993Jul29.030713.7705@truffula.sj.ca.us> cls@truffula.sj.ca.us    (Cameron L. Spitzer) writes:
   >Too bad 3Com won't let me work on the Linux driver on their time  :-(.

   Why is this?  The company provides drivers, presumably developed on their 
   time, for Dos and other operating systems such as Novell.  Does the company 
   have a policy of not providing drivers for non-commercial operating systems, 
   or is it because they don't think there is enough demand?  

Part of the problem is that there are SOOO many different drivers
that you need to have.  In addition to the various DOS drivers (ODI,
NDIS, packet driver, PC/NFS, Lantastic etc), you have the various
unices (SCO, SYSV, BSD, NEXT), then come the real-time operating
systems.

And Linux has the disadvantage of not having a single vendor who can
say "Well, I've told 100,000 copies of this thing, and my customers
keep asking for 3C509 drivers, and I have to tell them no".

Linux also has the disadvantage that it isn't being run in bulk.  You
don't have someone saying "Gee, I'd love to buy 3,000 adapters, but I
need to have a Linux driver".  The nice thing about an order like
that is that 3Com *knows* it would sell 3,000 adapters, and could
justify the expense of writing the driver with very little risk.

So if you want 3Com to develop a Linux driver, you have to let them
know that 1) you want one, and 2) if you don't have one, you're going
to buy somebody else's board.  It wouldn't hurt if you were going to
buy a bunch of 3c509's, and submitted a PO that said "Sale
conditional on the availability of a Linux driver".


This also goes for any other manufacturer who doesn't have a Linux
driver for their hardware yet, networking or otherwise.

-russ <nelson@crynwr.com> What canst *thou* say?
Crynwr Software           Crynwr Software sells packet driver support.
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