Pocketop CHARGING for drivers - and much more!

[yzord]

Well, I was just popped over to Brighthand, and I was astounded to see this particular news item:
http://www.brighthand.com/article/Pocketop..._Driver_Updates

Apparently, Pocketop is now charging a $10 fee for downloading any of their drivers - INCLUDING Craig Graham\'s GPL driver!!!
This is pretty unbelievably greedy. However, it gets even more interesting if you read what one user posted at the discussion thread for this article, indicating that Pocketop may have a) fired all development staff, and  closed down their offices!

Bizzare!
Yz

[cavit8]

There\'s explanation is here http://www.pocketop.net/process.htm
Apparently, it\'s because of the number of drivers they\'re forced to make to maintain compatability with the various PDA\'s.

Craig\'s link is still on Pocketop site, but it\'s been down for a while.  I didn\'t bother registering so I can\'t confirm that they\'re selling it.

Incidentally, I get an error clickin\' on the ZUG.com\'s download link for the driver.  Someone may want to check that....

MCA\'s driver is here http://www.mca-ltd.com/inde.php?PAGE=resou...p.php#downloads

I haven\'t heard that pocketop is going belly up....

Cheers

Cam

[lardman]

Apparently, Pocketop is now charging a $10 fee for downloading any of their drivers - INCLUDING Craig Graham\'s GPL driver!!!

That\'s fine just as long as they are offering source (for free) for those who want it.


Si

[Stubear]

Apparently, Pocketop is now charging a $10 fee for downloading any of their drivers - INCLUDING Craig Graham\'s GPL driver!!!

That\'s fine just as long as they are offering source (for free) for those who want it.


Si

Actually there are also able to charge for the source too!. As long as its a resonable price in comparison to the cost of the binary.

TKC are charging  $6.95 for tkcTrump and $49.95 for the souce - which I think is a tad over the top - and its a port of Kpat!

Stu

[soycap]

If anyone needs it...

http://www.tekprosystems.com/zaurus/downlo...s_0.9.2_arm.ipk

[clivel]

I noticed that you can still download the drivers from:
http://www.ultimatekeyboard.com/zaurus-sl5600.htm

On this page is irk-zaurus_0.10.0_arm.ipk and irk-sl5600_0.9.2_arm.ipk

I don\'t know much about the current Pocketop management, but if it is still the same crowd that started the company, I am not suprised that they are charging for the drivers. They had an interesting attitude towards paying consultants. I developed the preproduction Pocketop keyboard, and came up with the idea for using IR for the keyboard. I think that this was the first IR keyboard.
There was a rather large gap between what I was actually paid, and what I believe I originally negotiated. This was the last time that I did any consulting without a written contract.
Clive

[revdjenk]

Clive,
Thanks for the tidbit on the past!
I\'m glad I switched to the Targus...
(no offense intended!)

[VeeDubb]

I think the other pig reason is one that nobody here probably gets.

They have hundreds if not thousands of PocketPC users who have never bought a Pocket-top keyboard, downloading their drivers, because it allows them to rotate the screen.  

Normaly that\'s not possible on a PPC, but the commercial pocket-top driver for PPC has that function.

Most of the apps out there that do this are in the $10-$25   range, so this is realy an attempt to slow down the rediculous trafic on their download servers.


Also, I wasn\'t aware that they had anything to do with the IRK package?  I have never been able to find any link to download it from their site and in fact, it supports a lot more than their keyboard.

[cwaig]

Pocketop\'s only connection to IRK is that they donated a couple of keyboards to allow me to add support for it.

[lardman]

Actually there are also able to charge for the source too!. As long as its a resonable price in comparison to the cost of the binary.

I thought that the charge for the source had to be a resonable amount to cover the distribution cost (cost of CD/disk, p&p etc.), not anything to do with the comparitive cost of the binary.

Though I may be wrong.


Si

[Stubear]

Actually there are also able to charge for the source too!. As long as its a resonable price in comparison to the cost of the binary.

I thought that the charge for the source had to be a resonable amount to cover the distribution cost (cost of CD/disk, p&p etc.), not anything to do with the comparitive cost of the binary.

Though I may be wrong.


Si

No you are correct, section 3b says you may charge for source \"for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution\".

My misunderstanding was caused by the arguements I\'d seen on the tkc mail list about what constitutes a reasonable charge for the source. I have seen it argued that if you are making the source available over the internet, the the cost of physically performing source distribution may include server storage etc.