[xwin-discuss] What's new for drivers for Xorg on SPARC?

[John Martin]

Ken Mandelberg wrote:
> I don't want to get involved in the broader issues in Martin's post but this 
> caught my eye:
>   
>> If you find a manager who is willing (economically
>> *able*) to finance all that, then we would probably
>> be in paradise.
>> But all that doesn't make sense, as Sun wouldn't earn
>> a single Cent on that.
>>     
>
> We have a student computer lab full of SB2500/XVR600s. This was a very 
> standard configuration. The USIII cpu's in these workstations are not 
> substantially behind the current Sparc workstation offerings.
>
> When we buy from Sun we don't generally know what Sun's business 
> relationships are with their suppliers. We assume we are paying a premium 
> price for support of Sun hardware, and that they have chosen wisely both 
> technically in hardware and their ability to support it going forward.
>
> Work done supporting Sun badged hardware might not directly earn a single 
> cent, but it does contribute to customer loyalty and future purchasing 
> decisions.
>   
This is exactly what is happening.  Resources are being spent on features
and bug fixes for existing customers running Xsun.  The customers who
purchased these systems, many still running Solaris 8 and Xsun, expect their
environments to be supported at the same level historically provided by Sun.
Nothing has changed in the commitment to support existing customers.