Drobe Launchpad | Viewfinder support re-enabled

Viewfinder support re-enabled

Published on 17th Nov 2002, 03:09:01, source is drobe.co.uk
By Chris Williams

Windfall changes support policy. Third time lucky.

There's nothing like a little drama to really spice up things in the RISC OS world. Over the past few days, Windfall Engineering's disapproval of Dave Ruck's new graphics card mailing list has spilled over into the RISC OS csa.hardware forum with users expressing obvious concern over the future of Viewfinder support. The story behind Windfall and the Viewfinder list is explained here, an unfortunate conflict that has been discussed and argued to death on the comp.sys.acorn.* forums recently. However, late Saturday night, it appears a golden ray of refreshing compromise has emerged from Windfall, illuminating this editor's usenet reader.

Described as "Windfall Engineering's new, practical support and software update policy for Viewfinder", John Kortink's latest announcement lists the following points, (summarised by drobe.co.uk):

Users are now free to subscribe to any mailing lists and forums to discuss the Viewfinder graphics card without Windfall objecting. Praise the card or revile it - Windfall won't be there to read it.
Support from Windfall Engineering will only be provided via the Windfall Engineering mailing list and you won't get any Windfall support from anywhere else. The Windfall list will be moderated (that is, your posts are checked by a list manager before being sent out to other list members) but this is really to ensure the list remains focused and on topic.
Windfall reserves the right to refuse all but basic support for particular users, based on their behavior towards John.
Software updates for the Viewfinder card will again be free for all. Bug fixes will be free but you may well have to pay for new any features.
Known bugs are being ironed out as you read this article although the conflict between the graphics card and RISC OS Select issue 2 is yet to be resolved.

Already Dave Ruck, who created the unofficial Viewfinder list and then the new general graphics card list, has expressed his relief, commenting "I wholeheartedly welcome and endorse your [Windfall's] new policy". Other users have also joined Dave in thanking Windfall for their change in policy. See, we're all friends here.

Links
Windfall Engineering

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