On Fri, 2 Mar 2012, Tony Duell wrote:
And thirdly, there;'s the question of support.
I've had _much_ better
support -every time -- from the authors of free software than from
commerical software companies. This may be becuase I am often talkign to
the guy who wrote hte code in the former case. It may be becuase they
genuinely care. It may be becuase they don't simply say 'That information
is proprietory'. Nto that I need such support very often, if I have the
source code, schematics, etc, then I'll probably fix it myself (and tell
the author the problem I had, the fix, and so on).
In defense of the Software Preservation Society folks, I'll offer my
experience:
I am an admirer of Philip Pemberton's work, and voted with my wallet last
year by purchasing a discferret. I still look forward to a usable tool
chain based on that hardware, but the fact remains that it does not
currently exist. Needing a means to archive and image my 1000+ diskettes,
I purchased a Kryoflux board and set about archiving a mountain of 8" CP/M
diskettes (only the tip of the iceberg).
Technical issues arose trying to read a number of format types, and the
SPS software guru ("IPF") has been 100% engaged and responsive in working
torwards a solution. I have little doubt they will solve the problem in
the near term.
In the abstract, it would be great if all aspects of KF were opensource.
As a practical matter, I don't care. If I had the time and skills to
tweak the hardware and software in order to solve my immediate problem, I
would have done so for the DiscFerret or my older Catweasel controller
(which similarly cannot deal with the CP/M formats). The fact remains
that I have neither the time nor the skills, so I do not begrudge the lack
of source code.
SPS has my money for the KF hardware, but I have paid $0.00 for the use of
the software (since I don't do this for a living). Considering the
outlay, I am delighted with the service and support to date.
Steve
p.s. - I still have high hopes for the DiscFerret as a means to read both
diskettes and, particularly, MFM and RLL hard drives. The slow progress
on software support is disappointing, but I believe it is moving forward
and we'll all be better off when it gets here.
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