Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 16:44:38 +1300 From: David Preece <davep@afterswish.com> To: Justin Wojdacki <justin@chiplogic.com> Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs Linux, Solaris, and NT Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.1.20001220163018.01ada020@pop3.i4free.co.nz> In-Reply-To: <3A401DC9.FE79B8AB@chiplogic.com> References: <Your message of "Tue, 19 Dec 2000 11:43:17 EST." <5.0.0.25.0.20001219111044.020739e0@mail.etinc.com> <5.0.0.25.0.20001219120619.020cbac0@mail.etinc.com> <3A4012A0.44B4CEED@bellatlantic.net>
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At 18:47 19/12/00 -0800, you wrote: >Sergey Babkin wrote: > > > > The drivers are _not_ assets. When I buy a piece of hardware I > > very reasonably expect that it would come with drivers or at > > least the manual on how to write these. It's a part of the deal. > >However, if the device requires software to take on part of the >functionality (examples: WinModems, although I'm not sure whether it's >the driver or the OS that's doing the work there. I also suspect some >OpenGL cards may be like this), then the driver is more likely to be >considered an asset. I was on the point of stepping in with a very similar opinion. While I'm deeply hacked off at Intel for not dropping the NDA on 82559 series 8, causing me to have to think twice about using them in a commercial product, or indeed about using Intel at all, I can see a situation where I do feel it is fair: A lot of the reason why 3dfx (rip), Nvidia et al. often feel they cannot release open source drivers is that a substantial proportion of what these products do takes place on the host processor. Large quantities of research go into the exact division of tasks between host processor and offload processor, hence a large amount of their competitive advantage is derived from the driver code. They cannot afford to release it. Furthermore, AGP represents a substantial bottleneck to them, the protocol by which they get information down it is also of great commercial significance. Asking for open source drivers in these cases is much like asking for open source firmware on the boards themselves, simply not going to happen. To conclude: Open source, preferred. Closed source, OK. No driver whatsoever, bad. Bad bad bad. Should this really still be on -hackers? >Justin Wojdacki David Preece Aside: 82559/8, how does this affect BSDi's pre-installed rackmount boxes? Presumably it's all going to go a little tits-up when they start getting series 8 parts? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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