From owner-cvs-all Wed Nov 6 8:40:55 2002 Delivered-To: cvs-all@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 837A237B407 for ; Wed, 6 Nov 2002 08:40:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.speakeasy.net (mail14.speakeasy.net [216.254.0.214]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B80EF43E6E for ; Wed, 6 Nov 2002 08:40:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Received: (qmail 13010 invoked from network); 6 Nov 2002 16:40:52 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO server.baldwin.cx) ([216.27.160.63]) (envelope-sender ) by mail14.speakeasy.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with DES-CBC3-SHA encrypted SMTP for ; 6 Nov 2002 16:40:52 -0000 Received: from laptop.baldwin.cx (gw1.twc.weather.com [216.133.140.1]) by server.baldwin.cx (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id gA6Gekn5052524; Wed, 6 Nov 2002 11:40:46 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.5.2 on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <200211061451.gA6EpAlo035097@intruder.bmah.org> Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 11:40:47 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: "Bruce A. Mah" Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/share/man/man4 rl.4 Cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, Tom Rhodes , Kris Kennaway , Mike Silbersack , Alexander Langer Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On 06-Nov-2002 Bruce A. Mah wrote: > If memory serves me right, Alexander Langer wrote: >> Thus spake Mike Silbersack (silby@silby.com): >> >> > In this case, the file in question is a manpage rather than a piece of >> > source code. The source code remains unchanged (as it should be.) >> >> The text in question is not descriminating. It just mentions, that >> the docs and the design are bad. It's up to one himself if he wants >> a cheap NIC and live with malformed data, or if he wants a better >> NIC. However, I think it's quite important to tell people at least what >> a bad chip they are using, and the driver manpage is the correct place >> for this. > > I'm not sure whether all the people objecting to this commit actually > *looked* at the diff, but almost all of the information about the flaws > of the rl(4) NIC actually remained intact. Only two sentences were > deleted: > > The RealTek data sheets are of especially poor quality: the grammar > and spelling are awful and there is a lot of information missing, > particularly concerning the receiver operation. > One particularly > important fact that the data sheets fail to mention relates to the > way in which the chip fills in the receive buffer. > > The first one deals with the quality of the data sheet...it actually > doesn't say anything about the NIC itself. I think that one *can* go > away. I'd put the second sentence back, however, because it helps the > rest of the paragraph make more sense. The second sentence is important, yes. Of the first sentence, I can see removing the comments about grammar and spelling, but I would leave the information about missing information that that is important. If a company makes sloppy hardware and sloppy documentation that says more than a company that makes sloppy hardware but at least turns out accurate documentation. Maybe: "The RealTek data sheets are of especially poor quality. There is a lot of information missing, particularly concerning the receiver operation." etc. (and add the second sentence back in). This preserves complaints about the lack of technical quality in the documentation w/o beating up on RealTek for really stupid stuff (spelling, grammar, etc.). This should be restored at the very least if the entire commit is not reverted. -- John Baldwin <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message