Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 10:08:19 -0700 (PDT) From: Danial Thom <danial_thom@yahoo.com> To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: Recommendation for 1000BASE-SX card? Message-ID: <20060602170819.68092.qmail@web33307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNKEAPFEAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com>
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--- Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> wrote: > > > >-----Original Message----- > >From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On > Behalf Of Chuck Swiger > >Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 8:24 AM > >To: danial_thom@yahoo.com > >Cc: questions@freebsd.org > >Subject: Re: Recommendation for 1000BASE-SX > card? > > > > > > >Very well, let me put it another way: if your > opinions about > >what's wrong > >differ from most other people, you might do > better to rely on a > >discussion > >involving facts rather than opinions. > > Or, it could simply be that he's not doing what > most people > are doing, so he is going to run into trouble > that most people > don't run into. > > >I mention this because > >some people > >regard their own opinions so highly that they > don't seem to be > >aware that > >other approaches exist and might even prove > effective. > > > > Like you? > > >> Clearly there are drivers that are well > >> supported and drivers that aren't. There are > >> people out there trying to run their > businesses > >> and you seem to want to pretend that > everything > >> is just peachy and that everything can be > tweaked > >> and tuned a bit to be usable. > > > >I don't know about either the OP or your > situation(s), > > Then, pray tell, don't comment. Instead thank > your lucky stars > that you have not had to deal with that kind of > problem. > > > but I'm > >generally of > >the opinion that FreeBSD works just fine, most > of the time, on > >most hardware, > >without any specific tweaking or tuning to be > entirely usable. > > > > It does not. In reality, current versions of > FreeBSD work better > on current versions of hardware. FreeBSD has a > terrible history > of breaking things that used to work on old > hardware, then > when someone complains that something is > broken, the developers > in effect tell them their old hardware is > crappy junk and to buy new > hardware. > > Try running FreeBSD 6.X on a 80486 or Pentium > system. FreeBSD 4.11 > runs just fine on that hardware, if a bit > slowly. But, I don't need > speed to control my garden sprinklers. > > Now, it is true that sometimes backwards > compatibility can hurt you, > it can cause you to maintain interfaces and > structures that conflict > with support of new hardware, it can sometimes > put you into > situations that cannot be automatically > resolved, thus you have to > create a knob for the user to twaddle one way > or another, depending > on what hardware they have or what they want to > do. It can suck > off developer time to maintain old junk that > only a few people use, > instead of putting in support for new crap that > a lot of people use. > So there is a balance beam of too much > backwards compatability > and not enough of it. Microsoft is most > definitely way far on the > side of bending over backwards to support > everything, but most people > don't realize that FreeBSD is way far on the > other side of sacrificing > hardware support at the drop of a hat when > people lose interest > in it. > > >That's true of some other platforms, such as > Apple hardware and > >MacOS X, or > >even Sun/SPARC boxes, as well. YMMV. > > > > Total apples and oranges comparison, not > relevant to anything. > > >If you have specific problems or a > FreeBSD-driver to Windows-driver > >performance comparison, providing #'s and > enough details to > >reproduce would be > >helpful. > > That has been done with the Broadcom driver > exhaustively in the > PR database, there's at least a dozen PRs on > problems related > to that chip. However it has not resulted in > much code to fix > the problem, or even interest among committers > to apply the fixes > that have been posted. So no, I don't think > that doing that > is helpful at all. In fact, I really think the > PR system has > gotten pretty much broken these days, there's > too many bugs and > not enough people working on them, and more > coming in every > day. > > What is needed is some developers putting some > time into > knocking down the bugs in the PR database, but > instead we have > the foundation dumping money into funding > students on projects > like "The Summer of Code" which basically ends > up creating a lot > of half-finished efforts that may or may not > eventually get > integrated into the operating system at some > point down the road. > > Nobody wants to fix other people's bugs, that's > boring stuff, > that is the one area of Open Source where > commercial software > companies have a leg up over us. A commercial > company can find > some starving programmer and pay him, then put > a manager over him to > keep jerking the paycheck string to keep him on > task to do the > icky programming. Open Source has real > difficulty with the concept > that some things in it are broken, rather > ickely broken, and > totally un-fun to work on, and the only way > your going to get > them fixed is by whipping some slave until they > do the filthy > task. People would rather spend the gold that > they have on > nice, pleasant projects that treat everyone > nicely and look good > on Resumes, and are not icky, nasty, > uncomfortable things to > do that make you late for dinner. > > Ted > What's going on Ted, have you jumped ship since I last came up for air? :) Its easy enough for commercial companies to fix the bugs if they need to use the broadcom drivers. There's just little incentive to donate the code back with this bunch of rude, incompetent clowns that have become the FreeBSD micky mouse club. There was a time when you could discuss an issue with Matt, Mike and Terry and hammer out a solution. Now you've got a bunch of gaming jockeys who know as much about hardware as my Mom. And that ain't much, sadly. DT __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
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