Several open source and third party software projects stopped operations after Plextor has sent them a cease-and-desist letter. Some people would say that is an “attack” because they do not provide PlexTool for Linux. However, Plextor drives have some proprietary protocols for accessing or decoding ECC data from their drives. Any company that does not license, negotiate, or partner with Plextor (assuming if its even possible to begin with), will have to reverse engineer their protocols which might be a shady task in some countries.
I think their way of doing business is flawed and they need to get off their high horse that their hardware is better than anyone’s else’s stuff. Many hardware companies now understand that their bundled software is what adds real value to the customer. Providing good customer support and giving customers the flexibility to run the hardware in a variety of environments is key to success. Many smaller start up companies waste a lot of resources supporting Linux, Solaris, and Windows. Supporting Linux can be a headache, but companies can also lay down some rules and say we will only support certain distros and if you want to run something else, you are on your own.
Apparently plextool.com has no downloads for Mac OS X, so I assume they don’t have support for it.
edit: I forgot to mention that PlextTool XL is usually sold as a separate product, especially for those who have purchased lower end Plextor drives.
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