Re: 4D-NXs (was Re: Sync Issues)

[Paul Barton-Davis <pbd@Op.Net>]

>>       * "we don't have enough programmers to do that"
>
>If the drivers are being written for them by volunteers, I dont see how
>this is relevant.

if they had a driver written for them by 4Front, and it had problems,
their desire to have volunteers do another one is low. i won't name
the company that had this problem, but they are a real soundcard company.

>>       * "we don't have any written documentation to give you guys -
>>          we wrote the driver by having the software group sit in with
>> 	 the hardware group"
>
>This should be a warning sign to anyone thinking of purchasing their
>hardware. If a company cant be bothered to internally document the
>hardware, what happens if key engineers leave the company? Oh dear, their
>project is *permanently screwed*, which means zero support for end users.
>This is no way to run a company.

Yamaha (the company that this quote comes from) seems to be doing
quite well :)

>Uh, isnt this what patents are for? If someone reverse engineers their
>card, they are *completely screwed* unless they have patent protection.

and the cost of a patent is ? look, there's very little truly clever
stuff in these cards, and what is patented is often stupid (est told
me last week about someone who has patented putting an LFO in hardware
on a soundcard with a wavetable synth). most soundcard technologies
don't last more than a few years, and investing the X-thousand dollars
in seeking patent protection for a nifty hack that will be irrelevant
in that time is pretty unjustifiable for most things. security for
obscurity really does work when you only want it for a little while ;)

i think david's point is an important one that i didn't mention, and
he's right that the only thing, in the end, that most of the companies
are going to respond to is more than a couple of studios saying "we
run linux - we want to buy your cards/devices and there are no drivers".