Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 02:22:41 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Mike Smith" <msmith@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: "Doug Hass" <dhass@imagestream.com>, <freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: FYI Message-ID: <004101c157b6$6fcdb0a0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <200110180532.f9I5WFs08081@mass.dis.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Mike Smith >Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 10:32 PM >To: Ted Mittelstaedt >Cc: Doug Hass; Leo Bicknell; Jim Bryant; MurrayTaylor; >freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG; freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: FYI > > >> That's silly, what did you find in it that's flamebait? I think you didn't >> read it. > >You're a) misrepresenting the project, b) dismissing the opinions and >statements of others that are arguably more in touch with the project, >and c) you won't let this stupid thread die. > I do not feel that this thread is stupid. To the contrary I'm very concerned when a manufacturer pulls a specialty card supported by FreeBSD off the market and replaces it with nothing that is supported. Every time this happens (and it seems to be happening a lot with network adapters lately) it causes problems for a lot of users, confusion because This rev of the card is supported and That rev isn't, extra work for the maintainers, and in short sets the project back. This does not help FreeBSD to support lots of peripherals, as Doug pointed out we are being ignored by the RAS card manufacturers, and nobody is going to use FreeBSD no matter how good the kernel is if the OS doesen't support the hardware they own. Telling Imagestream we built a module architecture that makes writing, maintaining and deploying binary-only drivers easy is fine, but it does nothing to respond to the problem of how to convert their binary drivers to our framework. They don't even understand we have a framework, let alone how it operates. They are asking us to write the drivers and they don't even understand that some of the developers that could do it have reservations against binary-only drivers only available under NDA, or how much more it could help them if they were to just publish source. And attempting to even talk about this openly leads into irrelevant pointless accusations about stealing intellectual property. Device driver support in PC operating systems seems always to have been a political football no matter what OS vendor - even Microsoft with all their power still was forced into writing drivers for some hardware, despite all the pressure they applied to the hardware vendors to do the work. You seem to be taking the attitude that "we made a framework, and that's as far as we go - you write the driver" and then labeling any further discussion on the matter as stupid. Well, if this is the attitude in the FreeBSD project (which I doubt) then if it was such an effective one then why does Linux seem to have many more drivers written for it? >> >> No, I am well aware of FreeBSD's history and if you don't believe that the >> project avoids closed-source code then I don't know what to say, frankly. > >You could say "I'm wrong". It'd be a good start. > OK, your right, I'm wrong. Contrary to my statement, FreeBSD attempts to get as much closed-source code as possible. That's why the name of the distribution starts with the word "Free" Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?004101c157b6$6fcdb0a0$1401a8c0>