SciTech Software Inc. to Open Source Its Proprietary Device
Driver Architecture
- SciTech
Software Inc confirms Open Source plans, and offers two
licenses to accommodate the needs of developers and vendors.
Chico,
Calif., August 27, 2002 -- SciTech
Software, Inc. today announced the intention to release the
bulk of its proprietary device driver development tools under
a new dual license structure. SciTech has selected the GNU
General Public License (GPL) license to handle the needs of
Open Source developers along with a commercial software license
for those seeking to offer non-GPL solutions. By providing
an Open Source license to its powerful development tools SciTech
is seeking to gain wider acceptance of its unique SciTech
SNAP device driver architecture. To date companies such as
IBM, and ATI have benefited from the binary compatibility
that the SciTech SNAP architecture provides. With this latest
announcement embedded and industrial developers will have
the ability to utilize the same architecture to further their
own efforts.
“Over
the years I’ve been asked to put up or shut up by some
powerful players in the Open Source community regarding this
architecture; well I guess the time has come to put up,”
said Kendall Bennett, founder/CEO of SciTech Software Inc.,
adding “the alternate OS community has suffered long
enough through the lack of a solid binary compatible device
driver architecture”
SciTech’s
commercially available graphics driver pack, SciTech SNAP
Graphics, currently supports nearly 180 graphics chip sets
on multiple OS’es with full 2D acceleration. Access to
all existing SciTech SNAP drivers will remain available under
SciTech’s commercial license and will not be Open Sourced
due to existing NDA’s with chip vendors. However, anyone
choosing to utilize the SciTech SNAP development tools will
have the ability to study GPL samples of SciTech SNAP drivers
in the DDK. The dual license will allow developers the ability
to quickly tap into this fully plug-and-play support base
with little effort.
“We
see this as an important step for the alternate OS space,”
said Andrew Bloo, Director of Sales and Marketing for SciTech
Software Inc. “for the first time OS vendors that service
emerging markets get a true alternative to the aging X11 driver
model. SciTech SNAP provides complete 2D acceleration, plug-and-play
and a support base equal to anything available regardless
of OS including Windows”.
By
providing application developers, hardware and OS vendors
the ability
to fully develop solutions free of charge, SciTech is providing
real value to emerging markets. Should developers decide
to
ship drivers and or applications developed with SciTech’s
tools they can then decide to release their source code under
the terms of the GPL or easily change their license to the
commercial version and protect their proprietary code.
About
SciTech
SciTech Software, Inc. is a leading supplier
of PC graphics utilities, drivers, and tools for the embedded,
industrial
and enterprise markets. SciTech’s products allow software
developers to achieve maximum performance from their systems
graphics hardware. SciTech’s products include, SciTech
SNAP Graphics, a fully accelerated binary compatible graphic
device driver solution, SciTech GLDirect, an OpenGL to Direct3D
driver and SciTech MGL, an Open Source, professional graphics
library used to develop some of today’s most popular
software programs. SciTech products support the Windows, Linux,
OS/2, DOS, QNX, and SMX operating systems. Many major software
companies and hardware companies license portions of SciTech’s
technology for incorporation in their products. SciTech is
privately held and the company's web address is http://www.scitechsoft.com
###
