[driverloader] Licensing regression between versions 2.28 and 2.29

[Duchesne Family]

Eric,

> I must stress that I am not affiliated with the company in any way 
> other than I have purchased a driverloader license from them.  My 
> response is below.

I'm sure Linuxant can defend their case by themselves and don't need you 
as their "lawyer". I'm certainly waiting for their official reply.

> Since it was your purchase of a Linksys NIC that got you the TI 
> chipset, which got you the Linuxant license, you should be calling 
> Linksys to discuss this issue.

I did call both Linksys and TI before contacting Linuxant. It is pretty 
clear that they both could not care less about me (this is a niche 
market, otherwise why would TI not renew the agreement?). The reason I'm 
contacting Linuxant as a fallback is because they are much smaller, and 
thus they are supposed to be much more responsible towards their customers.

> You "paid" for a Linksys NIC containing TI chips, which included a 
> license that entitled you to the (at that time) current release of 
> driverloader.  Revert to 2.28 and you'll have what you are entitled 
> to.  Money isn't flowing from TI to Linuxant any more, yet you 
> unexplainably expect Linuxant to continue development on your behalf 
> at no charge?

I work for the software industry, and I know a thing or two about what 
it means to buy software.

An important notion when you buy software is the notion of revenue 
recognition, and software version. In particular, most companies in the 
industry recognize their revenue (the money people pay for a license) 
over the lifetime of the product they buy, instead of one lump sum 
upfront. The lifetime of the product is usually defined in terms of 
major version.

When I bought my TI-based NIC, DriverLoader was already at version 2.x. 
Version 2.29 is still major version 2, and that is why I believe that I 
have paid for it, and that my license should still be valid. I would 
understand that Linuxant would revoke my license when DriverLoader 3.0 
comes around.

> Fair?  You want Linuxant to spend their development resources to 
> implement your suggested code enhancement

We are not talking about implementing a feature request here, we are 
talking about fixing a bug in a product I paid for.

> One last stab at the company, accusing it of some unethical deed, 
> because you want a freebie.

Come on. I don't care about the money. We are talking about USD 20. It i 
a question of principle.

>   The "aforementionned (sic) URL" leads to a dated document.  The date 
> lets you know when the statements within were made.  There is nothing 
> misleading about that.

"(sic)": English is a foreign language to me. One typo in a whole email 
isn't too bad, is it? In fact, you spelled "wield" incorrectly below...

What is misleading is that customers still think they can use TI-based 
NICs out of the box with DriverLoader. There is nothing to tell them it 
is no longer the case.

> You have some responsibilities when you weild the power of the internet.

My responsibility here is to warn other potential customers that 
Linuxant is not playing by the industry's rules.

-- 
Regis "HPReg" Duchesne