FreeSoft and the Ever-Changing Hardware of Today

[Sabahattin Gucukoglu]

Hi everyone,

It's come to light recently, after a somewhat lengthy interlude of 
silence, that we are no longer in possession of the Humanware hardware we 
once were: one of our members had to give his unit back, the other has 
upgraded to the latest hardware available.  We therefore no longer have 
the original basis for FreeSoft, that of early-day, expensive hardware 
upon which to run a cool suite of apps powered by Open Source rather than 
the cludgy software currently in use.  Not, of course, to say that we 
haven't discussed running FreeSoft on anything else, of course; it's just 
that we really are spread thin now as far as supporting any given platform 
goes.

It seems like a good opportunity to ask everyone what they think of the 
whole idea now that times are changing, Freedom Scientific is offering 
trade-in programs few people are apparently able to refuse, key staff of 
PulseData have left for other jobs or worlds, and the prospect of any kind 
of external support in anything but the vaguest geek projects spun off by 
other people elsewhere working on entirely different projects is entirely 
unlikely.  Help from Humanware seems certainly unlikely.  We were here to 
bring Open Source to an expensive but very suitably blind-friendly 
hardware basis, and although we've had some geek successes in running a 
NetBSD kernel and developing a couple of system tools in aid of the 
project, we just haven't got enough to make any kind of progress on any 
given platform.  One of a kind and no tech specs isn't enough.

It would be disappointing indeed to consign these expensive units to the 
grave and abandon the project, but if we must then we must.  We ask you to 
give your opinions.  Is the enterprise worth pursuing?  Other projects may 
start up on clean slates, other projects already run Linux on accessible 
PDAs, and the world of Windows CE is open to anyone who will pay for it or 
trade in using Freedom Scientific's current offer.

Please tell us if you're alive and whether you think anything can come out 
of this.  We'd rather scrap the whole idea if there's no enthusiasm in it 
than try fruitlessly to continue in the current conditions.  Any last-
ditch appeals, offers of help or other recommendations are welcome.

Cheers,
Sabahattin

-- 
Sabahattin Gucukoglu <mail<at>sabahattin<dash>gucukoglu<dot>com>
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