Re: Eye2Eye a hope for Promise to Join Linux

[William Scott Lockwood III]

Dear Mr. Lyons,
  I think it's very exciting to see someone from promise talking to the
community.  I think the most important thing to remember is that even if the
company does not release source, people will reverse engineer the cards
anyway - possibly not giving the best support to the hardware that could be
given with GPL'd source.  How does that make the product look?  If I can buy
a controller that is very well documented (like my Adaptec 2940) and will
serve my needs, and has source, I (personally) will pick that card over a
closed source product where I cannot update the binary only driver provided
by the manufacturer.  While I recognize that sometimes it's hard to get
"suits" to understand this, I encourage you to try.  :-)
  Along these lines, I'm wondering what your interest, and Promise's policy
is about Interviews?  I'm curious to get your companies views on Linux, and
also yours - I run a small (VERY loose, VERY non-serious) website called
http://www.geekizoid.com/ and while we mostly cover troll related net humor,
we also are trying to branch out and do more serious stuff.  The Interview
(if you would agree to it) would be "Slashdot style" - we'd let the
readership know you were willing to answer questions, and we'd then forward
them to you - you would then answer the ones you wanted, and those answers,
verbatim with no editing, would appear with the questions as asked.

William Scott Lockwood III
Geekizoid Webmaster

----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Lyons" <[e-mail]>
To: "'Andre Hedrick'" <[e-mail]>
Cc: <[e-mail]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 6:52 PM
Subject: RE: Eye2Eye a hope for Promise to Join Linux

> Hi,
>
> Andre and I did indeed have a nice conversation on the phone. Thank you
> again for taking the time to talk with me and offering your assistance. As
I
> stated on the phone, we are making a large commitment of resources to
> supporting Linux by releasing drivers and utilities for our products,
> including the FastTrak. I know we have plans to release source for our
Ultra
> and SuperTrak series cards, but at this point I'm not sure that the way we
> are going to be supporting FastTrak is what you would like to see. As I
> said, while I cannot guarantee anything that I don't have the authority to
> deliver, I will pass on your requests. I will try to be an advocate for
> Promise in the Linux community, and an advocate for the Linux community to
> Promise. If the company has concerns, I will let you know what they are,
and
> then maybe you can tell us if we are off-base with those concerns or not.
>
> I would invite anybody to contact me if you have any suggestions, any
> requests, whatever. As I told Andre, I won't promise something I can't
> personally deliver, but I will do whatever I can to help out. I'm also
> trying to get a technical point of contact so that you don't have to deal
> with a marketing weenie who doesn't understand half of what you're saying
> ;).
>
> Regards,
>
> Craig
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andre Hedrick [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 2:43 PM
> To: Craig Lyons
> Cc: [e-mail]
> Subject: Eye2Eye a hope for Promise to Join Linux
>
>
>
> Greetings Craig,
>
> I would like to publicly thank you for coming to the table of GNU/GPL with
> an open perspective.  After 90 minutes on the phone, of which 45 minutes
> were me pointing out issues promblems and complaints w/ 20 minutes on ways
> to work on solutions in the near and distant future and the listening to
> your concerns and questions between my moments of interruption.
>
> The next conversion will not have the burst-in moments because it will be
> in person or my cell battery will be fully charged.
>
> Since you have stated "I will not make promise, I can not keep" this is a
> good thing and it will go a fair way to clean up messes from the past on
> both sides.
>
> I look forward to Promise working with Linux in meaningful and productive
> ways.
>
> Please reply and correct anything that is mistated by me or verify the
> correctness.  This will show an action of good-faith before all those
> watching here.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Andre Hedrick
> Linux ATA Development
>
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