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SubjectRe: [Off Topic Conspiracy Theories] RE: UDI and Free(tm) Software


On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, David Parsons wrote:

> Terry L Ridder wrote:
> >
> > Just because a UDI driver is written against the UDI specification
> > does not imply that it is either a "good" or "bad" driver. It only
> > means that it meets the UDI specification. There is nothing in the UDI
> > specification that says either explictly or implicitly that a UDI
> > driver will in fact work.
>
> You realize, of course, that you're speaking absolute nonsense. Why
> in the name of g-d would any commercial hardware vendor deliberately
> write device drivers that _don't_ work??

Where did Terry write "deliberately"? If you seriously think that
hardware manufacturers release perfect non-buggy drivers, I would
be forced to say something unprintable.

For example ...

I cannot use my S3 card in Windows 95 because the official driver
from the card manufacturer' web pages creates visual artifacts in
16 bit colour mode. It has never worked with DirectX.

I have a soundcard which consistently produces static, dives into
a "click" loop, or corrupts its own wavetable. The company made a
number of beta Windows 95 drivers before dropping development.

The official Logitech driver I got with my Logitech trackball has
never worked with Windows 95. I'm forced to use a Microsoft mouse
driver which unfortunately doesn't support the 3rd button.

My PCI NE2000 clone (ick, I know) came with a driver disk, but it
never worked with IPX/SPX, though it works fine with TCP/IP. This
doesn't help me when I want to play network games.

I bought a 3DFX clone card, and it came with a driver CD, but the
drivers refused to detect the card. These were the drivers that I
got from the CD in the *same* box as the card.

... and I won't even go into the Tekram incident ...

These are official drivers. I'm much happier with the free driver
model, because when things go wrong (and they have) I can get out
my editor and fix the blasted things (and I have).

--> Free Software Works <--


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