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Date:      Wed, 16 May 2018 03:06:22 -0700
From:      Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling@kev009.com>
To:        blubee blubeeme <gurenchan@gmail.com>
Cc:        Johannes Lundberg <johalun0@gmail.com>, x11-list freebsd <freebsd-x11@freebsd.org>,  Niclas Zeising <zeising@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: your mail
Message-ID:  <CAK7dMtD05_crvu6WhJYoKefsj58WqY%2B_nGOiimN_dt%2BV92vb5w@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CALM2mEnuwPBZHE7FCtxeuQmrfkLVE9ZghvdFxuZiU0keH8FyNw@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <CACvgo523OnQAKe0capm0u7XqSdV%2Bpwhqhjtg4%2BmFowvWARHQ_Q@mail.gmail.com> <20170222120828.zkrfh56swen7r44o@ivaldir.etoilebsd.net> <CACvgo50Jbs3vQyE-bzxJ3CqeKXnhrGTXyt=ngZRZHNF=0rsq-g@mail.gmail.com> <3635692.Vys3mgEcQY@workstation.reztek> <CACvgo51x1s77y-8w0j7hS4O9ZJASzhh%2Bo8yAULvoXtMB3LB=Sw@mail.gmail.com> <237b2552-c97c-fd41-5509-ed611f0103dd@freebsd.org> <CALM2mEkb%2BXGcBm5OV6ArtXyz2jUhuHso4ULn100r_1phoig-oA@mail.gmail.com> <efb0370d-bbbc-9629-79d3-fa6d6f4b4bf7@freebsd.org> <CALM2mEnQ5SwZ7VvoDdBouOL8NYRBeObNwT0WoGvaCusi_oU16w@mail.gmail.com> <CAECmPwtBgQxNBLb3L9Dfo-PtAjYL1r0=3YdzNmxOotLshd-J-g@mail.gmail.com> <CALM2mEnuwPBZHE7FCtxeuQmrfkLVE9ZghvdFxuZiU0keH8FyNw@mail.gmail.com>

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>> Johannes you do great work but you missed my point.
>
> There's absolutely no reason for anyone to invest any resources into
> developing a proper graphics stack for FreeBSD if the FreeBSD devs are only
> going to rely on Jerry-rigged stuff from Linux.
>
> The mailing list is bombarded by regressions and issues with the Linuxkpi
> stuff. For lightweight stuff sure, use the Linuxkpi if u have to but for a
> major component of the platform, that's just pathetic.
>
> There are talented devs out there who can get the work done, they just need
> to be financing, then organized.

That's a pretty blatant put up or shut up comment.  Do you have tens
of millions of dollars to fund this?  If yes, I know exactly who to
tap from community to do the development and I'd be happy to organize
it.

One thing to realize about driver development, and most complex
systems programming, is that the cost of going from a neat hack to
something commercially viable is exponential.  For example, blitting
to a framebuffer or pushing a packet out of a NIC is a one day affair.
Driving those device in a competitive, performance oriented, stable
and worth using in commercial deployments is a years long affair.  I
can tell you that each of the most used storage, network, and many
software subsystems are at minimum millions of dollars a piece of
professional development.  A graphics stack is more complex than most
of these.

> Seeing as most other platforms got their networking stack from BSD, it's a
> sad state when FreeBSD has to use Linuxkpi to get networking drivers.
>
> If stating that the FreeBSD graphics stack is in a sad position is
> "shitting on people" then I'm guilty of that.
>
> I just know that we can and should do better.

For network drivers I do actually agree with you.  I see the companies
using LKPI in the Ethernet path as pretty pathetic because it's
objectively a tractable amount of work, especially now with iflib.
I've steered many thousand NIC purchases away from LKPI drivers for
various reasons including this.  You can vote with your wallet by
using Chelsio and Intel.

Regards,
Kevin



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