From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 8 22:45:53 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7D5D01065673 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 2008 22:45:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers2.e313df@mired.org) Received: from mired.org (five.mired.org [66.92.153.75]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 215578FC23 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 2008 22:45:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers2.e313df@mired.org) Received: (qmail 34727 invoked by uid 1001); 8 Jul 2008 18:45:39 -0400 Received: from bhuda.mired.org (bhuda [192.168.195.1]) by bhuda (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:45:38 -0400 Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 18:45:37 -0400 To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20080708184537.7dc1900a@bhuda.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <5f67a8c40807081521o1f32660ak392672da61e490fd@mail.gmail.com> References: <5f67a8c40807081521o1f32660ak392672da61e490fd@mail.gmail.com> Organization: Meyer Consulting X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.4.0 (GTK+ 2.12.9; amd64-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) From: Mike Meyer Cc: Zaphod Beeblebrox Subject: Re: Glaring 64 bit omission X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:45:53 -0000 On Tue, 8 Jul 2008 18:21:27 -0400 "Zaphod Beeblebrox" wrote: > I was just following up to a post in the forms nvidia supports regarding the > graphics cards and FreeBSD when it struck me... Rather late.... > Possibly one of the most important glaring omissions to the current FreeBSD > platform and it's associated desktop projects is the lack of an nvidia 3D > driver. It's been this way for quite a while. > _That_ being said, it seems that these kernel items should be on a priority > list for 8.0 (and possibly even delaying 8.0 until we can achieve them so > that 64bit nvidia support (arriving in -STABLE) is not delayed another year > or two). I'm sure it's on quite a few people's priority lists. Unfortunately for them (yup, them - I don't do 3d on my desktop) none of them appear to be on the important list of people regarding this issue: the list of people with both the time and skills needed to deal with these kernel items. Which is the root of the problem: FreeBSD is a volunteer effort. There's not a lot of incentive to fix a problem that doesn't affect you directly (and the FreeBSD folks are to be congratulated for how well they do on such issues in general!) - and as you point out, this is a rather deep problem. Pointing out that "this issue is N years old and hasn't been addressed" isn't constructive - everyone who could deal with it certainly knows about it by now. That said, since you believe this should be a priority, and have listed how it affects you personally, what have you done that *is* constructive? The obvious ones would be submitting patches that seem to move things in the right direction, or establishing a bounty for such patches. Done either of those? Something I overlooked? http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information. O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org