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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!newshost.telstra.net!asstdc.scgt.oz.au!metro!metro!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.zeitgeist.net!usenet From: "Amancio Hasty, Jr." <hasty@rah.star-gate.com> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Sometimes you need X server source (Was: Why to not buy Matrox Millennium) Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 02:55:09 -0800 Organization: TLGnet Inc., (formerly The Little Garden) Lines: 55 Message-ID: <315FB60D.41C67EA6@rah.star-gate.com> References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <4j36ev$prl@news.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE> <4ja099$r8k@ceylon.gte.com> <4ja28c$9da@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <4jb67e$eil@solaris.cc.vt.edu> <ROELL.96Mar28184328@blah.xinside.com> <315C1D51.41C67EA6@rah.star-gate.com> <315C2EEA.167E@zk3.dec.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: rah.star-gate.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b2 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1-STABLE i386) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.apps:14032 comp.os.linux.development.system:20533 comp.os.linux.x:28353 comp.os.linux.hardware:35228 comp.os.linux.setup:48683 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:419 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:2951 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:2718 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:16520 Larry Smith wrote: > > Amancio Hasty, Jr. wrote: > > > Hey Thomas, take it easy. There are people who are not willing > > to pay a dime for software and those you will never be able to > > convince to buy software. > > And there are people like me who are perfectly willing to pay > a decent price for their software - provided it comes with the > source. I've got quite enough bruises from dealing with endless > Microshaft bugs with no hope of ever fixing it myself and damned > little support, thanks. I'm not going to lock myself into some- > one _else's_ idea of when a bug needs to be fixed. Not again. > It was a brutal, painful, expensive lesson, but I learned it. > I'd cheerfully pay $200 for an accelerated X-server - if it came > with source. But if it doesn't, I won't, it costs me no more to > just boost the speed with faster hardware if need be necessary. I am afraid that in the case of X servers very, very few individuals can fix the bugs and sometimes you can't due to hardware bugs. The current model of free sources floating around is great except for those who sacrifice themselves and sometimes spent days , weeks hacking away -- few things in life are free. Your typical hacker has to support himself somehow unless he is filthy rich or has savings set aside to hack away. Most likely the typical case is that you go to a day job and in the evenings hack away. Now $100 for a great X server is not a lot when it allows your PC to fly like a workstation. We used to have to pay thousands of dollars to achieve the same performance or less not too long ago. Try to imagine just 2 years ago that we were going to have 1000k xstones on PCs today. Next immediate problem who is going to support 3d hardware? We can do it in an open forum but is *not* going to be easy and even we muster the 3d hardware support what about the apps? I used to hack on X servers for FreeBSD and I can tell you that I rather pay right now than to develop the X servers myself. The PC graphic engine technology is advancing by leaps and bounds and it takes time, money and sweat to provide support. My advice support both the few commercial efforts and XFree86 Both efforts for sure have their place in the PC Unix arena. -- Amancio Hasty Hasty Software Consulting Services Tel: 415-495-3046 Fax: 415-495-3046 Cellular: 415-309-8434 e-mail: hasty@star-gate.com Powered by FreeBSD