Discferret broken?

I'm not tony. But... ...I think you raise a point here that deserves addressing. As I remarked upthread to tony, I think money is weak-to-zero motivation to write good code instead of crappy code, at least for top-of-the-line people. (Or lay out boards, or whatever - I'm using writing code as a convenient proxy for all the creative endeavours in question.) Money _is_ - or at least can be - a motivator to write code instead of bicycling along the seashore or folding a nice piece of origami or what-have-you. It is also a motivator to write code for a product instead of writing code for something else. This is one reason commercial products exist for a lot of things no gratuit-&-libre alternative exists for. However, none of this invalidates tony's argument that when a gratuit-&-libre `product' _does_ exist, thinking that its commercial competitor must be better because it's got money behind it is a fallacy. As a side note, I'd also point out that contrasting "gratuit-&-libre software" with "software written for pay" is a false dichotomy; there are people who are paid to write gratuit-&-libre software. (There are also people who write closed software unpaid, though not that many these days.) I don't know. Perhaps _you_ can't. But people regularly do build things for no direct pay as a side-line, either while working for pay or while between for-pay jobs. I, for example, worked for the second half of '02 at a job that paid well enough I lived on the resulting money for all of '03, which time I spent, in large part, creating software to give away because I felt like it. I - and, I suspect, tony - would say that's a good reason to use something other than USB as an interface. It's a large part of the reason I am unhappy depending on USB for anything: it is complex enough, and ill-documented enough (are the specs even available without substantial payment and an NDA? I've never looked) that, once now-common chips that implement it are no longer available, USB devices will become basically useless. Contrast to, say, a serial line: I can build a serial interface, over any host connection that gives me at least (say) two general-purpose output bits and one input bit, out of discrete logic, individual transistors if necessary. Neither did the people behind most of today's now-undocumented vintage hardware, back when it was being made. Indeed. Was it lack of politesse, though, or was it criticism? There is a very important difference. (I haven't seen any of the text in question, so I don't know whether it was a questino of politeness. But my experience has also been that honest technical criticism (and pointing out a choice to use inappropriate line drivers/receivers is that, even if it is also rude) usually is not impolite. The rabid flamers generally don't have valid technical points. Silence your honest critics (as opposed to flamers) and you will rapdily find yourself surrounded by content-free syncophanty...and a rapidly dwindling user base. I...see. Perhaps they wouldn't. But if you consider it a conflict, and I have seen companies take very similar stances often enough, then they would have to choose between the two of you. (As a simple example of such a conflict, it is extremely hard to find a restaurant, at least around here, that serves products of both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola - the only explanation I have heard suggested is that, in order for either to be willing to sell to a restaurant, it has to agree to not deal with the other.) A "large, big, mighty" institution probably would not be hindered. But, as small as you may be, you are significantly larger than, say, an individual developer; I know that if I were interested in developing for both and you saw that as unacceptable, I would be in no position to challenge it. (Nor would I want to, but that's me.) There are at least two answers to that: (1) "better" is not a single-valued spectrum; thing A may be better in some ways, for some users and/or tasks, and thing B may be better in other ways; and (2) there is a mindset that prefers commercial products over gratuit-&-libre competitors simply because they are commercial. I do not understand it; my view generally is "costs more, less flexible, worse support, what's to like?". Yet people persist in going with the commercial products. I've never found it explained in a way I can even understand, much less agree with. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B