Re: Proposal to write a serial driver

[Martin H. <mar...@mh...>]

Hi John,

John Brohan wrote:

> This information about the 10 or 100 copies is new to me. I think that
> it changes the discussion completely.

No,  it does not really change anything, because this is not
really new.

> I  have  written  to  my  local  rep and hopefully he will
> confirm this.

I think he will confirm this, but up to now nobody has shown
me  a  licence  agreement  wich explains this 10 or 100 free
copies and I havn't found it up to now in any of the NI-VISA
licences. But I havn't read all NI-VISA licences.

Maybe,  this  10  or  100  free  copies are a decision of NI
beside  the  licence agreement. Should I ask NI for the free
copies whenever I wants to distribute a application?

> There are other projects I could better spend my efforts on.

Oh yes, I'm too.

Please read what Scott Hannahs explained in Info-LabVIEW:

> Well the problem is not if it is 10 or 100.  That is rearranging the deck chairs.
> Suppose I write an application that uses serial.  I think it is cool and put it out on
> my web site.  Do I put a note that the first 100 people who download it can use it,
> but the next 100 are SOL?  Do I keep track of it by number of downloads and then have
> to remove it from the web site?  Do I have to count downloads by web indexing spiders?
> 
> Once I reach the 100 limit, can I take it down, change the version number and put it
> back up as a different application?  Does the 100 distributions take over then? 
> Despite being written by very exacting lawyers this license agreement doesn't make
> sense (translation: it's flakin' stupid!).
> 
> It is nice to raise the limit but it doesn't address the fundamental problem.
> 
> NI sells their own serial board (which some folks have complained about the price)
> but it claims much higher performance due to better drivers/hardware combination. 
> That means that NI is competing on the quality of their product.  To put this kind of
> restriction on use of all serial ports is trying to squeeze out another fee without
> providing that kind of performance advantage.  Charging people to use the hardware
> they already purchased is a bit over the top.
> 
> Next is a distribution fee if your application actually draws on a video screen?  Use
> of the LabVIEW graphics libraries is obviously something that should be charged for? 
> Maybe it is a basic question of what the hell are you paying for when you buy LV?  Is
> it a data acquisition and control language or just a stripped down IDE where you need
> to purchase a slew of addons to use it as a product development platform.
> 
> I am glad that NI is considering changes in this license agreement.  Some time they
> should have their alliance members talk to management about what keeps all of them in
> business.  If they plan on eating their seed corn and squeezing the alliance members,
> then the agreement will reflect that.  Other than that, NI management should be the
> ones controlling the lawyers instead of vice-versa which seems to be the obvious
> conclusion from reading the license agreement.
> 
> Next, we start to talk about the non-compete clause?
>
> -Scott

Now  you  can  decide  if  you  really  want  to  stop  your
activities  for  an OpenG Serial Port API. But, whatever you
do,  I'll  continue  (as  an  OpenG  project or at any other
place).

While  most  people  are  talking about the licencing issue,
nobody  seems  to  talk  about  disadvatages  of  the actual
NI-VISA implementeation and the way it works. A view example
(all of them for the serial port and for the windows OS):

Start  your  MS Win PC, and if the OS is up and running plug
in a USB to serial converter, then start a labview and place
a  VISA  control onto the front panel. This VISA control did
not  show the new serial port. You are also unable to access
this  serial port trough VISA. - Ok, I have tested this only
on two different PC's, both with win XP.

VISA  Lock  and  Unlock are working as described, but that's
not  a  useful  locking  mechanism for the serial port on MS
Win.  Nobody  needs  to  give  a process exclusive access to
anything he already has.

The  Termination  Character  is  a  nice thing, but for some
devices  with horrible protocols I would prefer to have more
than   one   Termination   Character   and/or  one  or  more
Termination Strings.


-- 
Martin Henz