Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 08:53:14 -0500 (EST) From: Doug Hass <dhass@imagestream.com> To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> Cc: Jim Bryant <kc5vdj@yahoo.com>, MurrayTaylor <taylorm@bytecraft.au.com>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, Alfred Shippen <ashippen@metromatics.com.au> Subject: RE: FYI Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.1011015083441.10426E-100000@ims1.imagestream.com> In-Reply-To: <002e01c15556$7d0c6fc0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
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> And if you want to sell these to FreeBSD users then make your Linux driver > source (not the SAND stuff) available so that we can mod it into our own > driver. Many other companies do this and as a matter of fact, we (meaning > FreeBSD) have even found bugs in crummy Linux drivers that have been reported > back to Linux and helped those manufacturers better their products. I'm not going to get dragged into an OS war. Both Linux and FreeBSD have their share of "crummy" drivers and features. That discussion is honestly beyond the scope of a discussion of ImageStream's SAND architecture and the WANic 400 series. We are bound by third party agreements and are not allowed to release any more free code (legally) than we already have. If we were not restricted by SBS, Trillium, and Rockwell (among others), we would release all of the code under GPL or lGPL. These agreements do NOT prevent us from working with developers to support other platforms, though. It only prevents the free release of portions of the code. That being said, we're always interested in supporting a wide variety of platforms. Without the SAND architecture, though, there really is little hope of having FreeBSD support for the WANic 520 series cards (or other cards, for that matter). If there are developers in the community interested in porting SAND and the various hardware modules (for the 520 series and other cards) to FreeBSD, we'll be happy to work with them and support that effort. It is in ALL of our interests to have the widest support for standards-based technologies as possible. > No offense, but once Imagestream stopped selling WANic400's you > ceased being an entity of interest to FreeBSD, as you no longer sell > any products that run under it. I'll reiterate what I've said to you privately: ImageStream DID NOT make the decision to discontinue the 400 series or the RISCom/N2 series. This decision rested solely with SBS. However, FreeBSD users are NOT without options: 1) FreeBSD users can still get the WANic 400 and RISCom cards from the second hand market, as another person mentioned. 2) WANic 400 series cards are still available in quantity. If the market for FreeBSD is as large as you claim, then you or someone else in the community should have no problem snapping up a quantity of these cards and reselling them to interested parties. I'll go one step further: If anyone contacts me about the WANic 400 series, mentions that they are for FreeBSD, I promise to give an extra 15% discount over and above our normal volume discounts just to illustrate my desire to support the FreeBSD community. 3) Virtually ALL of our customers, save for OEMs making their own products, purchase complete routers. Going this route would eliminate the need to have FreeBSD support, as any user would have a standalone router. Regards, Doug ----- Doug Hass ImageStream Internet Solutions dhass@imagestream.com http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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