[ltp] MWave-Linux-Petition

[Bill Mair]

Hi,

Here are my 2 cents:

Even if MWave DSPs were never built into another TP model, what woulod the rest of
us do that already have this chip ? Should I just throw my 760 and 770 away ?
AFAIK IBM probably won't integrate the MWave DSPs into future models.

Modem H/W chipsets are a far more expensive than DSP solutions, I also consider
the "Lucent" WinModem solution to be far from acceptable.

The load induced on the main CPU while loading the DSP software is minimal, the
DSP adapter S/W is the part that evaluates the AT commands, hiding the underlying
DSP implementation completely from the calling application.

With a DSP solution I can easily upgrade my modem "firmware" when new protocols
and standards are defined just by updating my MWave S/W.

The DSP code itself is common across all platforms, only the adapter code is
platform specific. I can also imagine that large parts of the adapter code would
also be common code.

Keyboard/Disk/Battery controllers are not "really" CPUs and I doubt if there would
ever be a reason to change their firmware, modem protocols on the other hand are
constantly being developed and improved.

Regarding "non standardized kernel attention", why are they so many different
drivers in linux ? Because every disk/keyboard/display controller has it's own H/W
to S/W interface each of which requires "non standardized kernel attention". The
MWave DSP is just another chip. Some cards from the "Plug and Pray" arena also
require that the kernel drivers some kind of initialization seqeunce to set the
card/chip in motion.

To cut a long story short, I and many other have a TP with an MWave based modem
and can't use it under Linux. Due to IBM's public commitment to supporting the
Linux platform I consider it only to be fair that they also deliver support for
IBM's proprietery MWave H/W.

I personally don't care if it is open-source or not (don't bash me for saying
this), if IBM can deliver support for their NetFinity systems then IMO they should
equally deliver support for their TPs.

Some of the mails that I have recieved for the petition came from people who don't
even have a ThinkPad, but they said that they would have bought one if it wasn't
for the lack of support from IBM. See
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/09/07/linux_laptops/index1.html !

Bill.