From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 23 14:30:48 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 37920F2B; Wed, 23 Oct 2013 14:30:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from bigwig.baldwin.cx (bigwig.baldwin.cx [IPv6:2001:470:1f11:75::1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0F92F2394; Wed, 23 Oct 2013 14:30:48 +0000 (UTC) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (unknown [209.249.190.124]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 182E8B93B; Wed, 23 Oct 2013 10:30:47 -0400 (EDT) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [rfc] removing the NDISulator Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 10:23:32 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/8.4-CBSD-20130906; KDE/4.5.5; amd64; ; ) References: <5265878B.1050809@yandex.ru> <201310212146.r9LLkqZ1044966@fire.js.berklix.net> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201310231023.32351.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.7 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Wed, 23 Oct 2013 10:30:47 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Adrian Chadd , "Andrey V. Elsukov" , "Julian H. Stacey" , "freebsd-wireless@freebsd.org" X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 14:30:48 -0000 On Monday, October 21, 2013 6:29:24 pm Adrian Chadd wrote: > The NDISulator is a crutch from a time when there wasn't _any_ real > alternative. > > There are plenty of alternatives now. What's lacking is desire and > person-power. But the datasheets are there, or the vendor code has been > released, or there's linux/otherbsd drivers. > > Leaving it in there is just delaying the inevitable - drivers need to be > fixed, ported, or reverse engineered. > > This is going to upset users in the same way that eliminating any other > transition/sideways compatibility layer upsets users. But as I said, the > path forward is fixing up the lack of stable drivers, not simply supporting > some crutch. > > If there are drivers that people absolutely need fixed then they should > stand up and say "hey, I really would like X to work better!" and then > follow it up with some encouraging incentives. Right now the NDISulator > lets people work _around_ this by having something that kind of works for > them but it doesn't improve our general driver / stack ecosystems. Eh, having taken a stab at porting the bwl blob already, I would strongly oppose removing NDIS. If you do that I will just stop using my netbook with a Broadcom part altogether as I wouldn't be able to use it to try to test bwl changes. The NDIS thing is a bit hackish, but it is quite useful for a lot of folks. -- John Baldwin