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Xref: sserve comp.periphs.scsi:15996 comp.os.386bsd.development:1575 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!eff!news.kei.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!mcrcim.mcgill.edu!homer.cs.mcgill.ca!storm From: storm@cs.mcgill.ca (Marc WANDSCHNEIDER) Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.os.386bsd.development Subject: Re: aha2742. why no 386bsd driver soon. Date: 9 Dec 1993 20:12:51 GMT Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Lines: 46 Message-ID: <2e80s3$6rm@homer.cs.mcgill.ca> References: <CHqzyL.LBH@tfs.com> <BPRIEST.93Dec9091407@adr14.adrs1.dseg.ti.com> <2e7kch$41a@homer.cs.mcgill.ca> <2e7oak$s8d@explorer.clark.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: mnementh.cs.mcgill.ca In article <2e7oak$s8d@explorer.clark.net>, Eric S. Hvozda <ack@clark.net> wrote: > >Hmmmm, I find this all very interesting. It appears that Adaptec is going down >the path that Diamond has chosen. Anyone think this might become a trend >among hardware vendors to attempt to edge out free OSs like *BSD and Linux? I have a very hard time believing that there are boardroom meetings at Diamond and Adaptec where executives are sitting there saying: "Okay, this LInux and *BSD stuff is hurting sales. It's time to eliminate them." In fact, I believe that Diamond has lost sales due to free software (XFree86), and is well aware of it. I'd also be surprised if a vast a majoriy of people at Adaptec had even heard of these OSs. While I don't claim to understand these companies, it seems most logical to me that they're all annoyed with the terribly low profit margins the hardware industry sees, and thus have reasonaed that if they let out as little information as possible about their products, they might be able to protect -any- degree of innovation they have shown (which many suspect to be relatively little :-)) and be able to have an edge over their competitors Another thing that is worth noting, IMO, is that Linux and BSD-du-jour are NOT going to affect the sales of these companies all -that- greatly. I'm sure Diamond is going to continue to grow this year, and still make a hefty profit at it. Adaptec might run into trouble, but I -highly- doubt it'd be because of FREE UN*Xs out there. Their seemingly increasingly hostile attitude towards customers and lower customer satisfaction are going to do them in before lost sales because of Linux and BSD_du-jour users does. Marc 'em., -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Wandschneider Seattle, WA Barney the Dinosaur sings! You faint... Barney sings! Barney sings! --More-- You Die... --More--