On 28/10/2010 07:22 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> I was thinking more along the lines of "if the device you want to use
>> doesn't have Linux drivers, just write some".
>
> And indeed you could do that, if doing so would cost less than just
> buying Windows for your machine. Remember that there might be 3 or 4
> devices that only have Windows drivers: bill taker, coin changer,
> receipt printer, touchscreen, etc.
>
> You, as a manager, can say "Is it worth $75/machine to try to reverse
> engineer these devices in a way that
>
> 1) they work reliably
> 2) they don't spit money randomly back to the user
> 3) it keeps working even when the manufacturer changes something,
> 4) and get it working by the time we need it?"
>
> Tell me, if I handed you a piece of hardware with no documentation other
> than how to invoke the Windows device drivers, how long would it take
> you to reverse-engineer the Linux driver for it the first time? How long
> after the manufacturer changes something and updates the Windows driver
> before you know something is broken in your Linux driver?

Well, you'd think that the code to operate something as trivial as a 
coin counter would be very simple. But sure, I take your point.

I guess the real question is "why are people manufacturing devices that 
will only ever be used as part of an embedded system writing drivers for 
it that won't work as part of an embedded system?"

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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