From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Oct 16 9:55:22 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from ims1.imagestream.com (ims1.imagestream.com [205.159.243.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1FCAA37B401; Tue, 16 Oct 2001 09:55:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (dhass@localhost) by ims1.imagestream.com (8.9.3/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA02828; Tue, 16 Oct 2001 11:54:08 -0500 Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 11:54:08 -0500 (EST) From: Doug Hass Reply-To: Doug Hass To: Ted Mittelstaedt Cc: Leo Bicknell , Jim Bryant , MurrayTaylor , freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: RE: FYI In-Reply-To: <000001c1565d$987a8c80$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > As someone else pointed out in this forum, the Hitachi chipset is an > older design. I'm sure that it's probably possible today to design a > sync controller chip that sells for a lot less than the Hitachi part, > perhaps even under the $30 level. Certainly, async chips sell at that > level in volume. It's too bad that IBM didn't decide to put a sync > serial port on the original XT. :-) The conjecture and wishful thinking is nice. Unfortunately, the available chipsets today aren't running at or anywhere near the $30 range, which is why you don't see $75 T1 cards with CSUs (you see $750-$1200 ones). Let's dispense with all the talk about $75 T1 cards that don't exist (and won't for some time), whose licensing scheme is better, what driver architecture was developed for what reason and let's get back to the original issues: 1) Availability of the 400 series cards. If the FreeBSD market has the 400 series cards in such demand, then someone should be calling me with an order. I'll cut 20% off list for you if you tell me its for FreeBSD, and I'll still pledge 15% of your purchase price on top of that toward driver development. I'll give up my volume margin as a clear indication of my willingness to work with the community. The drivers BSDI developed and gave to the community for the 400 series are seriously out of date, by the way. Last I knew, they still referred to the cards as the "n2pci" and used some outdated code that has since been much improved. I'd be interested in working with a developer or developers to get some updated drivers out there for FreeBSD. This brings me to... 2) Driver development for FreeBSD We'll pledge 15% of the purchase of the aforementioned 400 series cards toward supporting a developer or developers to bring drivers to the FreeBSD market. The 400 series drivers need to be updated. There are a full line of cards available now that also need drivers. Even if no one in the community is willing to pledge money (through a card purchase or directly to a developer), I'm assuming that someone out there would be interested in developing the drivers. Again, if the FreeBSD market has WAN cards in such a high demand, we need to get developers on the driver development immediately. Now that you know we are interested, the code is available, and that we've pledged money toward it, I'd like to see someone in the community start working toward a solution, instead of complaining about how there isn't one. 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