alenppc wrote:
OpenPCI does not support Mediator. The OpenPCI page is very misleading as
it says in one place that it does and in another that it doesn't. But the
fact is, if it did it would be a lot easier for us. OpenPCI drivers do not
work on the mediator (if anyone has gotten them to work please let us know
how). :-)
The latest version does, well, somehow. Because the memory management for
"DMA memory" is virtually non-existant in the Elbox pci.library, it won't
work that well.
The problem in this case was that Elbox wasn't willing to open source their
drivers. But fair enough. OpenPCI is open by definition so I can see why
they do not want to support the Mediator.
No, this was not the problem. This was not about open-sourcing *their*
code. OpenPCI is not open-source itself and was never to become. No, Elbox
simply refuses to let people write drivers using OpenPCI, which would THEN
also be available for other PCI solutions. Even a USB driver would have
been possible that way (and ArakAttack is actually this driver), but then
Elbox couldn't have made a fortune in selling a bog standard USB PCI card
for a >50 EUR that costs them less than a tenth of that selling price.
OpenPCI for Mediator would have been a benefit for lots of users at that
time, but Elbox decided that the monopolious realm was more important to
them.
Ok, there might or might not be an agreement. It's his word against theirs.
Depending on the jurisdiction a verbal agreement might have the same value
as the written one, but I'm not going to go into that. There is no way to
know...
Somebody recently asked on A.org about the worst decision made connected to
Amiga, for me it was offering Elbox to write a driver for Poseidon. Lots of
people warned me, especially after the experiences with the Picasso96 team,
Warp3D, OpenPCI, but I thought I should give them a chance. It was a
mistake I still regret and that had caused me a lot of grief.
After all those mud-slinging, libel, illegal RDB killing software, denials,
{bleep}ting PR campaigns, censorship (since Elbox has taken over the
moderation of the Amiga-Mediator List, it's being massively censored!),
word-twisting etc. I now know better. And the thing is: the users support
this "company" after all!
"Elbox fan boys"? Isn't this a bit harsh?
[...] Besides, did anyone actually threathen him with a legal action?
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Amiga-Mediator/message/18140"If you don't act legaly against him, both u suffer
from profit losses and us users who already have the
spider and no poseidon are screwed, because we're
stuck with a board that is of no use to us."
"I'm just saying: Take it to him
and force him to change his stance legaly!"
Yes, we all know that you cannot use an illegal keyfile, no debating there.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Amiga-Mediator/message/18141"Should the keys now be release free into he public domain so existing user
benefit from them?"
And the best bits:
"We have no idea why Chris Hodges goes along this line once again."
Ya right. Reading and thinking would do the trick.
"This info was also translated and forwarded by one Mediator user (thanks
Valwit!) to
www.amiga-news.de, so Chris Hodges knows it."
Along with some more attempts to slander me and Michael Böhmer of E3B,
which was not involved here.
And now, the climax:
"> Will they be providing replacement software?
Possibly, especially when Chris Hodges refunds us the
costs of writing by Elbox drivers to his USB stack.
Writing of such EHCI drivers is about six months of
software programmer."
WTF! I didn't order them to write a driver, they were free to do so!
Dude, if you don't want money for your product either you already have
enough and maybe you should release the product for free?! Either that or
destroy it alltogether...
Well, that's solely my decision, isn't it? And how would I be able to
"destroy it alltogether"?
I expect to see some cracking instructions for Poseidon on the Mediator
mailing list (which is ruled by the kings of censorship and spindoctorism
themselves) rather than anything constructive.
This doesn't make sense. The Mediator mailing list is simply made by users
trying to help each other with hw/sw issues and I certanly wouldn't define
it as "ruled by kings of censorship". The ML has had its fair share of
Elbox criticisms. I don't think the moderators would ever allow "craking
instructions" to be posted, and I suppose you could call that "censorhip"
if you like.
The former moderators (who did a good job) transferred the ownership to
Elbox. Elbox is now blocking any message that is against them; Jens
Schönfeld and Michael Böhmer for example are censored by default. There's
no way there to speak up against their {bleep}ting.
Anyway, I might find a way to exclude Elbox products only from the next
releases on, so I can resume giving out keyfile to the classic Amigans and
Amithlon users out there.
