From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 20 22:10:51 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 125011065677 for ; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:10:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from Ggatten@waddell.com) Received: from mailhost0.waddell.com (mailhost0.waddell.com [67.130.252.61]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D0AB88FC29 for ; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:10:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mailhost3.waddell.com (mailhost3.waddell.com [10.1.10.28]) by mailhost0.waddell.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 79BB95083A for ; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:10:50 -0500 (CDT) Received: from mailhost3.waddell.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost (Postfix) with SMTP id 75F913D0CF for ; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:10:50 -0500 (CDT) Received: from WADPHTCAS0.waddell.com (wadphtcas0.waddell.com [192.168.203.229]) by mailhost3.waddell.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6E3643CEC9 for ; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:10:50 -0500 (CDT) Received: from WADPMBXV0.waddell.com ([169.254.1.133]) by WADPHTCAS0.waddell.com ([192.168.203.229]) with mapi; Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:10:50 -0500 From: Gary Gatten To: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:10:49 -0500 Thread-Topic: 2020: Will BSD and Linux be relevant anymore? Thread-Index: AcxHCka7dUBDBNFER1usc7IVj+DGlQAHYygQ Message-ID: <24466_1311199850_4E27526A_24466_7987_1_D9B37353831173459FDAA836D3B43499C521866E@WADPMBXV0.waddell.com> References: In-Reply-To: Accept-Language: en-US Content-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: acceptlanguage: en-US Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: RE: 2020: Will BSD and Linux be relevant anymore? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:10:51 -0000 Regarding drivers / hardware support... I'm not a huge fan of abstraction layers, in fact I hate them, BUT - does t= here exist or could an AL (HAL) be developed to hide the OS from the driver= so hardware manufacturers can more easily write drivers? For example, can= a HAL be developed that runs on BSD that "emulates" Winblow$ such that any= driver written for Winblow$ will "work" on *BSD? Granted it may not be as= efficient as a native driver but perhaps it would have these benefits: 1.) Would work "good enough" for most people in most circumstances. Perhap= s it's slightly slower (insert metric of choice) than a native driver, but = all but the most demanding users (top 10%?) won't care. The most demanding= users will probably take the time / effort to acquire supported hardware a= nd have the technical skills to accomplish what they need to. 2.) Would give BSD developers a starting place for reverse engineering / en= gineering a native driver. Instead of making the hardware people write dri= vers for BSD, they write for Winblow$ - but provide the source? The *BSD d= udes (dudettes) can take that and tweak as necessary. The hope is no one w= ould have to do 100% of the work, especially reverse engineering without mu= ch doc / etc - that must suck! Something in the back of my head says there was / is something along this l= ine already available or in the works, but I can't recall for sure. Anyway... I think someone else mentioned dividing up the "donations" such = that one could select which development area receives ones funds. I think = this would be a good idea... If I'm more interested in ZFS than wireless N= IC drivers - I can contribute to the filesystem/ZFS area. Perhaps this wou= ld also yield more donations - if one feels there funds will be going to su= pport their specific needs... G
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