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On 10/18/06, stinga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <stinga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 18/10/06 09:50:55, Robin Cornelius wrote: > > On 10/18/06, stinga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <stinga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > G'day all, > > > > > > I have a pci card that requires a module to be loaded for it to > > work. > > > > > What does the card do anyway? > > > > x25 connectivity, we use it for sending sms messages to vodafone's > smsc. > > vendor came back and they have a beta release of the code they are > going to send me. > Seems they are not dropping support, but I can assume that since the > card has been eol'd then revelopment is pretty low on the priority > list! Try to ask they for a source release and try to explain that if you can get a GPL release and get it into the kernel it a) opens up possibilities of others using it (increases market share, potential sales). Also due to the nature of the GPL community the community will help out with patches and self support (i assume however this is quite a niche market). There is nothing in the source code that would give their competitors any advantage, chances are that there competitors if they can make their own cards are fully capable of reverse engineering anyway to see how it works, so all they do by not releaseing the code is lock people in to specific kernel versions etc. Words like sales, potential customer base increase etc all get attention from these types of companies. A good example if you want to give them is ralink the wireless chipset manufacture. They have GPL'd there code and their chipset is fairly common on linux now and heading for full kernel inclusion for out of box support. (in fact many distros ship the modules already for out of box support). Ralink have also increased their market share. -- Robin Cornelius http://www.byteme.org.uk -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html