On Friday 26 January 2001 20:44, you wrote:
> so many peoples have problems with winmodem in linux
> i wonder why they dont dont make drivers for them ?
> is it that hard ?
It is when no information is available.
It is when no developers are interested in supporting people who replace $40
worth of hardware with less than $3 worth of hardware, and charge consumers
nearly the same price.
Remember, this is a community based on free software. If a piece of software
is to be written, _someone_ has to write it. With a HUGE job of reverse
engineering and fighting upstream to avoid infringements on software that is
often a) patented and b) secret, it is downright amazing that as much
progress as is current has been made.
If one lives in the United States, he not only has to reverse engineer the
product, but he also has to hire a lawyer to defend him in case he infringes
inadvertantly on the secret, patented software for which it is a license
violation(and likely a felony) to disassemble, even if it is for the purpose
of avoiding infringements. For all of this effort, he receives notoriety as
his only pay.
On top of that, the problem has to be interesting to the programmer and he
wants to see the product used. If you read the page at the linmodem site,
the folks there are more interested in using the devices for telephony, where
they are considered appropriate devices.
Read a few of the posts from the archives, search on the word "Gandia".
Ramon Gandia is an ISP in Nome, Alaska, and he often explained winmodems in
detail. The other thing stopping more effort on them is that many potential
developers feel they are doing users a _disservice_ by providing the drivers,
because they cannot compare in quality of service to dedicated hardware
modems.
Civileme
