On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 11:43:17AM -0500, Dennis scribbled:
|
| >Device Drivers
| >--------------
| >I donīt like binary only device drivers. The code of an operating
| >system is more complex than a driver. if a company does not want to
| >publish the sourcecode, the should go away.
|
| You've lost all credibility here. Well supported device drivers should not
No, he is simply stating his opinion. In addition, a well supported
should include both the source *and* the binary. At least one of the
reasons would be that customers who have top of the line drivers may
wish to customize the behavior of the hardware.
| require source. I'd prefer a commercial (preferably the manufacters)
Have you ever used Realtek stock drivers on Win32? Have you tried
to find a Neomagic driver on Win2K? Have you tried to find a driver
for Solaris?
Let's even see you try to use the newest Intel fxp0 driver for win32 and
lose old functions.
| support other than some guy in the ural mountains who fixes things IF he
| can get a card with a problem and IF he can duplicate the problem and IF
| hes a good enough coder to get it done.
|
| case and point: How many of us are sitting on our hands waiting for DG to
| have time to fix the latest snafu in the if_fxp driver? You cant blame him
| for having a job and earning a living, but the fact is that only he has
| enough experience with the part to do the job. We all have source, but who
| wants to spend a couple of weeks learning the intricacies of a very complex
| part to fix what amounts to a very small bug?
Many of us do.
| You NEED source in linux and freebsd and the like because manufacturers
| dont support their cards for these OSs and the drivers are a continuous
| work in progress. Drivers are fixed only AFTER a problem with a new
| revision part is encountered, which undermines a companies abiltiy to do
| its work and to have confidence that they will have a solution in the future.
If you don't like it, please don't use it.
| I'd take a driver disk with a binary driver with each shipment of cards ANY
| DAY over having to cross my fingers that the current FreeBSD driver works
| with them.
They work perfectly. On my systems, I could not get a good Brooktree driver
for Win32. FreeBSD works fine. My Intel 82559 cards work fine.
The newest Win2K Orinoco Wavelan driver cannot do ad-hoc mode,
| Drivers written in linux and freebsd, for example, are often "guesses" of
| how things work because exact documents are not available. The concept that
No, we read datasheets like everybody else.
| some programmer, as good as he may be, working in his spare time on a
| driver without full documentation is more desirable than code provided by
| the manufacturer is so short-sighted that is illustrates that the author
| has no concept of reality.
In that case, why are you using it?
| "hacker mentality" is not mainstream. 98% of people dont have a clue what
| to do with source code. They want products that just work. Your
Yes, FreeBSD just works.
| recommendation, if you make such a recommendation regarding "source over
| binary", suits your own requirements and not that of your client or readers
| and shows very poor judgement.
So does yours.
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