Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:35:12 -0600 From: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> To: FreeBSD <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: HAL must die! Message-ID: <20110318003512.GA16444@guilt.hydra> In-Reply-To: <F08A3C57F1281C13121853EC@Mac-Pro.local> References: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1103061251530.95312@abbf.6qbyyneqvnyhc.pbz> <il2qar$ka1$1@dough.gmane.org> <20110317144200.GA28942@takino.org> <alpine.BSF.2.00.1103171005430.2841@abbf.onfvpvfc.arg> <AANLkTikXKB1F_jh%2BNju_kr9v=w7F6VZL8PoqHUQKfgsL@mail.gmail.com> <20110317194852.GA15133@guilt.hydra> <20110317173557.131dddd5@scorpio> <20110317223637.GA15933@guilt.hydra> <20110317194858.61c4a03b@scorpio> <F08A3C57F1281C13121853EC@Mac-Pro.local>
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--2oS5YaxWCcQjTEyO Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 08:27:32PM -0400, Daniel Staal wrote: >=20 > The additional knowledge that Linux supports them means the manufacturer= =20 > isn't totally closed to supporting Open-source software, but tells us=20 > nothing beyond that. Linux's support may be by way of a binary blob from= =20 > Linksys, which doesn't help FreeBSD at all. The cards would still need t= o=20 > be reverse-engineered from scratch. It doesn't even tell us that much. It may be that someone decided to spend an incredible amount of time and energy reverse-engineering the hardware interface for the device and the driver software used on another OS, then built a driver that has for some reason (probably licensing) presented enough of a challenge to incorporation into a BSD Unix system that building something similarly for FreeBSD has proved challenging (to put it kindly). >=20 > If the manufacturer releases some technical documents on how to talk to t= he=20 > cards, that's a start at helping people write drivers. Even if they do= =20 > nothing else. >=20 > But chewing out Chad because he makes the guess that two cards he knows= =20 > nothing about are not supported because the manufacturer hasn't supplied= =20 > the support to make them supported (which they probably have on at least= =20 > Windows, if not Linux as well) is just blaming him for not being able to= =20 > read your mind about hardware you have in hand. Thanks. --=20 Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] --2oS5YaxWCcQjTEyO Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAk2CqMAACgkQ9mn/Pj01uKWTzwCgpPi1Fi9YFKoqEofCa57DviD0 +OkAnifrrAmT7oBfKRsNQ/82W3H9n+Zs =1j7s -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --2oS5YaxWCcQjTEyO--
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