Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 19:00:55 -0500 From: Dennis <dennis@etinc.com> To: Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs Linux, Solaris, and NT Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.0.20001221184852.03ceab10@mail.etinc.com> In-Reply-To: <200012211822.eBLIMm778734@earth.backplane.com> References: <5.0.0.25.0.20001220192150.01f42450@mail.etinc.com> <5.0.0.25.0.20001221120837.022ab0a0@mail.etinc.com>
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At 01:22 PM 12/21/2000, Matt Dillon wrote: >:If you want freebsd to remain a cult OS for hackers you are correct. >: > > FreeBSD hasn't been a cult OS in a very long time, Dennis. You need to > open your eyes a little more. The OSS world has changed in the last > few years. Yes but most commercial uses take advantage of the binary distribution capability of the BSD license AFTER they've poured their corporate dollars into enhancements. With linux you have to give your work away, making it much less useful. >:Reverse engineering is a myth. The result is so inferior to high-level >:language source code as to not be a concern, plus its illegal so it cant be >:marketed. > > Reverse engineering is very legal, and it is hardly a myth, nor > is the result necessarily inferior. What is inferior are the thousands > of commercial products that don't follow their own specs and the hundreds > of chipsets that contain serious hardware bugs that the manufacturers > don't bother to fix that we have to add hacks to support. > > What you are doing is using a few bad apples as an excuse to try to > bulldoze the orchard. No, the original writer was trying to use a very general argument about the absolute uselessness of binary code, which is disgustingly wrong. Im sure you dont disagree. Your argument is sound only if the manufacturer doesnt implement those "fixes" in their binary drivers, which they usually do. Its also more likely that they will use the correct workarounds and will know about them before they bite end users in the arse, which is usually not the case with "free" drivers typically found in free OSs. the previous writer used "objdump" as an example of reverse engineering software, the marketing of which would be illegal. Certainly you can figure out how something works and write an original driver for it, but thats not really reverse engineering to me. its still original code. Dennis To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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