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Hewlett Packard: hp’s open letter to the open source community

“From Jim Bell, General Manager of HP’s Open Source and Linux
Operation (OSLO) on behalf of Carly Fiorina, Chairman, President
and CEO, Hewlett-Packard.”

Re: Eric Raymond’s open letter to HP and Carly Fiorina in
LinuxToday (10/18/2000):

HP welcomes the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to
open source for today and for the future. For years we’ve been a
key player in important open source and Linux projects. We are
supporting Linux and open source software through our actions as
well as our words.

“Eric asked us about our Linux strategy for printers. Early this
year HP teamed with VA Linux to create a web site for open source
printing projects, hp.sourceforge.net. Available on that site is
open source code that supports HP LaserJet printers. HP’s
contributions include half toning algorithms, PostScript printer
description files (PPDs) to access printer features and job
formatting, etc. The site also includes HP sponsored open source
development projects for Linux printing in general (i.e. LPR,
LPRNG, Samba) and an open source project around our all-in-one
printer/scanner products at
hpoj.sourceforge.net/suplist.shtml….”

“Linux has its own long list of compelling benefits. HP is
committed to expanding the applicability and the capabilities of
Linux. In 1998, we initiated the open source kernel work for Linux
on IA-64; the code is available at www.ia64linux.org. We are
working with Linuxcare and the open source community to port Linux
to PA-RISC; the code is available at www.parisc-linux.org. In
addition, HP is a sponsor of the Open Source Development Lab, which
helps the open source community expand the role of Linux in the
enterprise.”

Complete
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