From: martelli@cadlab.sublink.org (Alex Martelli)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Open system are Illegal (was net.views -- which vendor is the most open?)
Date: 29 Sep 92 11:14:44 GMT
Organization: CAD.LAB S.p.A., Bologna, Italia

hm@hcshh.hcs.de (Hellmuth Michaelis) writes:
	...
:In <90022@hpunsca.canada.hp.com> chuckm@hpunsca.canada.hp.com (Chuck Munro) writes:
:
:>The really encouraging thing is that you can smell "open systems" in the
:>air just about everywhere you go within HP.  People I talk with seem to
:>be thinking "open" because they really believe in it, NOT because they've
:>been told to by upper management.   The mindset has taken hold top to
:>bottom.  One example is HP's presence on almost all of the standards
:>committees around the world.
:
:just found this in comp.periphs.scsi:
:
:]  Subject: Re: HP SCSI
:]  Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
:]  References: <5737@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> <25010004@hpfcdc.fc.hp.com>
:]  
:]  > I'm looking for the document "HP Common SCSI Interface Specification" as
:]  > referenced in the /etc/disktab file on HP-UX machines.  Everyone I have
:]  > talked to at HP seems to know nothing about this document.  Anyone know
:]  > where I might find this information?
:]  
:]  Sorry. This document contains confidential information and is not
:]  available without a non-disclosure agreement. /etc/disktab should
:]  not reference this document. Thanks for pointing out this problem.
:]  
:]  Bruce Lundeby
:]  lundeby@fc.hp.com
:  
:is hp's commitment to open systems (standards/interfaces ...) worth the
:paper on which the advertisements are printed ?
:
:after SCSI-I and SCSI-II do we now get SCSI-HP ?

Sure!  DeskJet 500 Printer Technical Reference Manual Chapter 7 "Soft Fonts"
                          ****************************
page 7-8 "Creating Soft Fonts":
"""
The escape sequences for creating soft fonts are not described in this
manual due to the length and depth of information required.
	...
Detailed information for developing soft fonts is available through the
HP Peripherals Developer Program.
"""
i.e., AFTER shelling out the usual outrageous amount for the unusually
THIN "reference" (HA!!!) manual (less than 1/4th the one for the Laserjet
printers!) you're told it's too hard to make soft fonts, but if you
want to shell out whatever they ask and sign in blood, maybe they'll
be good enough to deign to tell you.  "OPEN SYSTEMS" MY FOOT!!!  Maybe
it's because it's MY personal money which I shelled out for that 
caricature of a tech ref, just in the hope of porting a text-mode DVI
driver written for Laserjets, and got NO useful information AT ALL,
none, zero, zilch, since softfonts is the only area of incompatibility
between DJ500 and (old) LJ, and you've seen ALL the info that this
precious travesty of a manual makes available on the subject, but this
experience has soured me FOR GOOD against "open systems" hogwash talk
from Hewlett Packard.  My strictly personal opinion, of course, nothing
at all to do with the firm I work for, or the various Universities and
technical committees which have employed me in the past, but if I'm
EVER again called on to give a technical evaluation of an HP product,
(as I often have in the past, both officially and informally, resulting
in MANY, MANY /300's, /700's, /800's and peripherals sales for HP),
they'll *pay*, *dearly*, for the dollars I wasted on that "technical"
(HA!)  "reference" (BAH!)  "manual", AND for all the time I've wasted
waiting for my LaTex docs to print (with a graphics-mode driver) on
my DJ500 at home... "open systems", INDEED!

The documentation department(s) seem not to have gotten "the word" about
the openness thing, judging both from my DJ experience and the above
mentioned SCSI one.  It's a real pity, but it seems indisputable.
-- 
Email: martelli@cadlab.sublink.org                   Phone: ++39 (51) 6130360
CAD.LAB s.p.a., v. Ronzani 7/29, Casalecchio, Italia   Fax: ++39 (51) 6130294 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp