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On Saturday 11 December 2004 10:59, Simon Avery wrote: Scanner drivers...
Actually, they *were* included with XP Professional. The scanner was second hand, no driver disk or manual. XP ships with a whole bunch of hardware drivers included.
This is true up to a point, and is an interesting part of a piece of FUD that the makers of XP did put about... When MS is about to release (say 1-3 years) a new version they will ask (demand, permit, whatever) hardware suppliers to give them drivers to add tot he launch system. THose drivers are likely to be incompletely evolved, not least since the hardware manufacturers will only get a look at an early iteration of the new OS version, before they are required to provide code, and it is unpredictable how much change will occur. So we see the result when I setup a new PC for a relative, with XP on it and with new hardware for some things, but also with _old_ hardware for others - printing for instance, or when I moved one of our machines (the one with the HP scanner attached to it as it happens, and scanner software) from W98 to W2k. In each case the current drivers had to be sought on the Internet, and downloaded and installed, before the system was remotely satisfactory. It is rather under-emphasised that the drivers included in a new issue of a microsoft system are commonly a sort of placeholder, or sketch, and that one needs to acquire the finished version in order to actually do stuff with the hardware. But that appearance of completeness and recognition does provide a feeling of function.
Criticising what's probably the world's leading manufacturer on printers/scanners (HP) for not doing something is going to be ignored.
Two years ago HP made US$ 2 000 000 from Open Source operations. THey are unlikely to ignore that or anything that is _commercially_ associated with it. Their model for such things is, as I understand it, that Linux drivers for scanners are a cost of business, and the question of how much effort they put into them resolves to the value of the business. So expect to see Linux drivers for the more serious scanners, and for those that are easy because they have become standardised, but don't expect to see any HP involvement in making drivers for the back market of scanners that have been sold some time ago. Expect to see drivers for equipment that is available for business, SOHO, SME or whatever, to the extent that people are using that hardware in business and using GNU/Linux on the desktop.
But who says what level of compatibility a product must achieve before it gets a sticker? Ie, a All-in-one printer/scanner/copier might only have printer support under linux (real world examples of this), yet that is "compatible". To have some form of faith and identity, a scheme like this needs to be protected.
Or there needs to be documentation available of exactly what level of support is certified. Stickers etc are copyright anyway. -- Dr Adrian Midgley GP Exeter www.defoam.net Open Source is a necessary but not of itself sufficient condition. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.