From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 8 06:40:15 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 DDA8E106564A for ; Tue, 8 Mar 2011 06:40:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from asmtpout019.mac.com (asmtpout019.mac.com [17.148.16.94]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1A2F8FC0C for ; Tue, 8 Mar 2011 06:40:15 +0000 (UTC) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Received: from [17.151.75.219] by asmtp019.mac.com (Oracle Communications Messaging Exchange Server 7u4-20.01 64bit (built Nov 21 2010)) with ESMTPSA id <0LHQ00AIX7V2EN70@asmtp019.mac.com> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:40:15 -0800 (PST) X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=fsecure engine=2.50.10432:5.2.15,1.0.148,0.0.0000 definitions=2011-03-08_02:2011-03-08, 2011-03-08, 1970-01-01 signatures=0 X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 spamscore=0 ipscore=0 suspectscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx engine=6.0.2-1012030000 definitions=main-1103070206 From: Chuck Swiger In-reply-to: <4D75BE6F.3000100@stillbilde.net> Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:40:14 -0800 Message-id: <83D913FC-4A8B-489B-9BD1-09C33A05C31D@mac.com> References: <4D75BE6F.3000100@stillbilde.net> To: Svein Skogen (Listmail account) X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1082) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: HAL must die! 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: Tue, 08 Mar 2011 06:40:15 -0000 On Mar 7, 2011, at 9:28 PM, Svein Skogen (Listmail account) wrote: > But he does raise a valid problem (if more than zero users, etc). "We" > (I include fellow FreeBSD users, but also OSX and Linux users) do lack a > decent cross-platform device manager stack, with uniform device name > enumeration. DevFS (and its peers in Linux) does give us a start, but > not enough to build a system on. However, I suspect that getting this to > be truly cross-platform would take "a known name" in BSD-land, > OpenIndiana/Illumos and Cupertino agreeing with RMS that "making this > worth would be a nice summer-of-code project". Oddly enough, Sun, IBM, and Apple agreed on something known as OpenFirmware, and expansion cards were expected to provide basic OS-independant drivers written in Forth on a ROM (PROM/EPROM/EEPROM). It worked pretty well, but consumers complained loudly about spending an extra $20 on a ~$200 AHA-1540 card to get the OF version.... Much of that is still available under a BSD license (something called OpenBoot, IIRC), but most of the industry is staggering towards EFI instead. Regards, -- -Chuck