From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Aug 31 23:10:54 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0A22F16A4DA; Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:10:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kili@outback.escape.de) Received: from oker.escape.de (o2.escape.de [194.120.234.254]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CA35743D49; Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:10:52 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kili@outback.escape.de) Received: from oker.escape.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) (envelope-sender: kili@outback.escape.de) by oker.escape.de (8.13.4/8.13.4/$Revision: 1.55 $) with ESMTP id k7VNAoWc005768 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 1 Sep 2006 01:10:50 +0200 Received: (from uucp@localhost) by oker.escape.de (8.13.4/8.13.4/Submit) with UUCP id k7VNAkwM005763; Fri, 1 Sep 2006 01:10:46 +0200 Received: from petunia.outback.escape.de (kili@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by petunia.outback.escape.de (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id k7VN8Dl5028761; Fri, 1 Sep 2006 01:08:13 +0200 (CEST) Received: (from kili@localhost) by petunia.outback.escape.de (8.13.8/8.13.8/Submit) id k7VN8DQf009097; Fri, 1 Sep 2006 01:08:13 +0200 (CEST) Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 01:08:13 +0200 From: Matthias Kilian To: "Marc G. Fournier" Message-ID: <20060831230813.GA28455@petunia.outback.escape.de> Mail-Followup-To: "Marc G. Fournier" , "Constantine A. Murenin" , misc@openbsd.org, Harpalus a Como , Thorsten Glaser , netbsd-users@netbsd.org, miros-discuss@mirbsd.org, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org References: <20060830232723.GU10101@multics.mit.edu> <98f5a8830608301731s2b0663e3g94b0bd32f8a06a78@mail.gmail.com> <950621ad0608310654h78ae0023g346abd108815ae72@mail.gmail.com> <20060831110112.J82634@hub.org> <20060831184715.B82634@hub.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060831184715.B82634@hub.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i Cc: misc@openbsd.org, Harpalus a Como , "Constantine A. Murenin" , Thorsten Glaser , netbsd-users@netbsd.org, miros-discuss@mirbsd.org, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The future of NetBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:10:54 -0000 On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 06:50:00PM -0300, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > Even at the kernel level? Look at device drivers and vendors as one > example ... companies like adaptec have to write *one* device driver, for, > what, 50+ distributions of linux ... for us, they need to write one for > FreeBSD, one for NetBSD, one for OpenBSD, and *now* one for DragonflyBSD They don't have to write device drivers at all, they just should write good documentation. Some ten or twenty years ago, if you bought arbitrary hardware -- be it a radio, an audio tape drive, a television or even a computer -- you always got thorough documentation for the device, often including schematics, description of used integrated circuits etc. If your tape drive was broken, you could contact your local HiFi engineer, handle him the drive and the schematics, and got it repaired within a few days, even if he (the engineer) never got his hands on a device of the same brand. Even if the manufacturer of the device had vanished. Today, people happily accept and even *encourage* the use and inclusion of black boxes[1] that only the vendors can fix (if they want to, and if they still exist when problems occur). Even worse, people involved in free and open source operating systems encourage this habit. This is incredible. And for Adaptec, please remember the big aac(4) debacle popping up at the OpenBSD lists about a year ago. Ciao, Kili [1] Sometimes, the black boxes aren't black but white and have fruit printed or engraved on them. Ever tried to repair a broken iPod or let someone fix a bug in MacOS X?