Re: FYI
Tim, Your license with SBS for the DDK would prevent you from posting your code. If you read through it, you'll find that it prohibits the release of any of their DDK code under any circumstances. You could release everything EXCEPT the API for the card that SBS provides and offer the rest in object-only format. Doug On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Tim Wiess wrote: > > If anyone has an interest in adding support for the SBS WAN cards to > > FreeBSD, feel free to contact me. I'll be glad to help. > > I'm actually working on a driver for the SBS WANic 600 and 800 cards. > There is still a lot of work and testing to be done, but (assuming there > are no problems with the powers that be over here, and there are no > conflicts with our agreements with SBS) I do eventually plan on posting > the code (under a BSD license). > > I'll keep y'all posted. > > tim > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: FYI
If you didn't say it, then you weren't the one I was talking about, was I? :-) I got several other private mails saying that BSD licensed code was the one and only way, and 2 or 3 mails (from Ben, among others) saying that BSD-licensed was preferred. Either approach is as flawed as someone who claims GPL only or GPL preferred. The license terms of add-on drivers and products should be set according to the needs of the authoring person or company, in my opinion. Doug On Wed, 17 Oct 2001, void wrote: > On Wed, Oct 17, 2001 at 12:19:34PM -0500, Doug Hass wrote: > > > > I'm glad someone else is speaking up--all I've heard is Ted's point of > > view (from him, and from others who have said the same thing: FreeBSD only > > accepts BSD licensed code, period.) > > I said to you in private mail that where there's a BSD-licensed solution > and a non-BSD-licensed solution, all else being roughly equal, FreeBSD > tends towards the BSD-licensed solution. Not the same thing at all. > > -- > Ben > > "An art scene of delight > I created this to be ..."-- Sun Ra > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: FYI
> > If anyone has an interest in adding support for the SBS WAN cards to > > FreeBSD, feel free to contact me. I'll be glad to help. > > Just package your driver with your cards, or stick it on your support > site. The whole point being that you don't *have* to get your code into > the tree; you can maintain it successfully without either a) introducing > overhead for us handling your module, or b) introducing latency for you > trying to push a new version through our release process. > > I get the impression you haven't quite gotten the idea here yet; you > don't *need* to be in the base distribution, and in many cases it's > better not to be simply because it involves less work for everyone. O.k.--one more message. :-) We don't want to be in the base distribution. Never have wanted to be, nor have I indicated in my messages that we wanted to be. All we would like to see drivers for FreeBSD available in the market. Period. Doug To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: FYI
> > We certainly support the right for companies to protect their intellectual > > property in whatever way they see fit, even if the FreeBSD community does > > not. > > Doug; I would recommend against falling for Ted's flamebait here, since > that's really all it is. His characterisation of the FreeBSD Project's > attitude towards proprietary drivers fails to mention many of the other > factors that get weighed into these decisions, and I think he's missing a > lot of history. I'm glad someone else is speaking up--all I've heard is Ted's point of view (from him, and from others who have said the same thing: FreeBSD only accepts BSD licensed code, period.) > > The lack of flexibility in accepting various requirements illustrates the > > difference between an OS WITH legs in the market and one WITHOUT legs. > > And you probably shouldn't try to respond with generalisations that are > meant to be personal attacks. Think about who you're trying to endear > yourself to, eh? > > > Much to my chagrin, FreeBSD continues to fall more and more into the > > latter category. > > If we're legless, it's probably because we're drunk on our own success. 8) It's not a generalization at all. Honestly, compared to the market traction that Linux, VxWorks, Solaris and others have, FreeBSD is definitely without legs. The WAN card and RAS card markets are good examples of where the attitude toward "BSD-licensed code or bust" has resulted in FreeBSD being largely left out of the party. Three of the largest manufacturers in these segments (SBS, Cyclades, and Ariel) all support Linux and NT, but do not have BSD support. I've been frusturated repeatedly over the past few years as I try to continue to use FreeBSD myself for different applications. It's too bad we can't find a way to include more companies and solutions instead of continuing to find ways to EXCLUDE them... > Seriously though; if you don't want to release sources for a driver for > whatever reason, that's fine. But bear in mind that if you don't support > your binary-only driver in a realistic and attentive fashion, you're > going to make people unhappy, and they will turn to solutions that they > can maintain themselves, or that they can badger other people into > maintaining. Agreed. Maintaining code has never been a problem for us. We're talking about someone else in the FreeBSD community maintaining these drivers, though, not ImageStream. Their attentiveness to bugs would directly impact that. This will be my last message on this topic. I feel as if this discussion is going round and round and has no real end or purpose at this point. I'll quit wasting bandwidth. :-) If anyone has an interest in adding support for the SBS WAN cards to FreeBSD, feel free to contact me. I'll be glad to help. Regards, Doug - Doug Hass ImageStream Internet Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
RE: FYI
> Doug, in the entire history of the FreeBSD project, when given a choice > between a better driver or code that is closed source, and a worse > driver that has open source, the FreeBSD community has never chosen the > driver or code with closed source. In fact I can only remember ONCE > that the Project has recommended against freely available BSD code - and > they did so in favor of GPL code, not closed source code - and this was > for the coprocessor emulator (used for 386 and 486SX chips only) > The only time that FreeBSD gets involved in closed-source code is when > there is simply NO other alternative - like in this case where the > register interface specs are being withheld. We certainly support the right for companies to protect their intellectual property in whatever way they see fit, even if the FreeBSD community does not. The lack of flexibility in accepting various requirements illustrates the difference between an OS WITH legs in the market and one WITHOUT legs. Much to my chagrin, FreeBSD continues to fall more and more into the latter category. Doug To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
RE: FYI
> Is there any way to get some of this - NOT under GPL and NOT under NDA? > There's at least one person during this thread who was looking for a > DS-3 card like a WANic 8xx You _did_ mention that some of the card modules > in SAND are not under NDA? All of the code is licensed under either the LGPL or is available only under NDA. Neither of these should present a problem for developers who want to write FreeBSD drivers (whether they are based on the LGPL'ed SAND or are monolithic). > We might be easier getting 10 buyers for DS3 cards than 100 buyers for > WANic 4xx cards, if you get my drift. Well, if people don't mind buying cards with no drivers...The reason for offering the 400 series at a discount was to solve the supply issue that you raised originally. > Doug, as a FYI, I believe that I can fill in a bit on the state of the sr > driver. They don't actually refer to the cards as the n2pci (now, at least) > They have had work done to them already by John Hay and Julian. I'm glad to hear that the name was corrected. If someone is interested, there is a newer development kit (actually several newer ones) that would improve that driver significantly, especially in high load situations. I'm certain that those improvements are not in the driver, since the development kit containing them is only available under license. > This support does NOT appear in the FreeBSD driver. It's not possible to use > port1 (the one with the CSU port) in a FreeBSD system at this time. It may be > that John Hay chopped out this support but more likely he was working with > an older version of the driver. There's no reason that you can't use the N2csu port in a FreeBSD system. The code to do this has been freely available for nearly 6 years. We released a version of the n2 code to open source as well. > The second bug only appears on WANic 405's and is triggered by high > volume rates on both interfaces simultaneously. Rod has been unable to > isolate the problem but he and I confirmed that it only appears with > dual-port cards. The bug causes about 10% packet loss to be noted on a > Pentium 200. I believe that it is possible to minimize the effects of > this bug by using the cards in a much faster CPU. Actually, it will happen with the one-port cards, too. As you increase the CPU or the clock rate, the problem gets worse. We've fixed this (among other things), which is why I recommended getting ahold of the newer DDK. > Other than that the FreeBSD sr driver is stable, has not caused a crash > or other problem on the hardware I've used it on over the last year and > a half, on a busy Internet router that runs BGP. Great! That's what I like to hear. The hardware is quite reliable and well-proven, and I'm glad your drivers are working well. > Well, we _had_ a solution - the 400/405 that worked well, and has a > Netgraph-enabled driver for it. I guess that nobody let you guys know > at Imagestream that developers in the FreeBSD community were maintaining > the "old" BSDI driver. Sigh. We knew that the driver had undergone some maintainence. It still has bugs, and doesn't take advantage of the later code advances in the development kit, but if it works well enough for you, then that's not an issue. If you don't want to improve the driver beyond where it is now, that's definitely up to you. You know that improvements and bug fixes exist if you ever decide they are affect your use of the card enough to put them in place. > What we don't have is a solution for the 5xx and later cards. But I think > that there would be even more interest on a DS3 card like the WANic 8xx Development tools for the later cards have been freely available (under NDA) for 5 years now. No one is holding anyone in the FreeBSD community back. Doug To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
RE: FYI
Better than a published interface and white paper, we also provide the direct code itself. You could certainly make a netgraph/SAND interface module. Doug On Tue, 16 Oct 2001, Julian Elischer wrote: > > > On Tue, 16 Oct 2001, Doug Hass wrote: > > > > The "hardware API" or the actual register interface code, is a binary-only > > > module that is "snapped in" to SAND. SAND is GPL and is similar to the > > > FreeBSD Netgraph module - it provides all the higher-level protocol stuff, > > > like > > > Frame Relay, PPP, HDLC, and such. SAND goes between the OS TCP/IP stack and > > > that binary only module. > > > > That's rather simplified, since SAND also does alot of other things, but > > you have the basics. > > > > If there's a published interface, we could make a netgraph/SAND interface > module > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
RE: FYI
> As someone else pointed out in this forum, the Hitachi chipset is an > older design. I'm sure that it's probably possible today to design a > sync controller chip that sells for a lot less than the Hitachi part, > perhaps even under the $30 level. Certainly, async chips sell at that > level in volume. It's too bad that IBM didn't decide to put a sync > serial port on the original XT. :-) The conjecture and wishful thinking is nice. Unfortunately, the available chipsets today aren't running at or anywhere near the $30 range, which is why you don't see $75 T1 cards with CSUs (you see $750-$1200 ones). Let's dispense with all the talk about $75 T1 cards that don't exist (and won't for some time), whose licensing scheme is better, what driver architecture was developed for what reason and let's get back to the original issues: 1) Availability of the 400 series cards. If the FreeBSD market has the 400 series cards in such demand, then someone should be calling me with an order. I'll cut 20% off list for you if you tell me its for FreeBSD, and I'll still pledge 15% of your purchase price on top of that toward driver development. I'll give up my volume margin as a clear indication of my willingness to work with the community. The drivers BSDI developed and gave to the community for the 400 series are seriously out of date, by the way. Last I knew, they still referred to the cards as the "n2pci" and used some outdated code that has since been much improved. I'd be interested in working with a developer or developers to get some updated drivers out there for FreeBSD. This brings me to... 2) Driver development for FreeBSD We'll pledge 15% of the purchase of the aforementioned 400 series cards toward supporting a developer or developers to bring drivers to the FreeBSD market. The 400 series drivers need to be updated. There are a full line of cards available now that also need drivers. Even if no one in the community is willing to pledge money (through a card purchase or directly to a developer), I'm assuming that someone out there would be interested in developing the drivers. Again, if the FreeBSD market has WAN cards in such a high demand, we need to get developers on the driver development immediately. Now that you know we are interested, the code is available, and that we've pledged money toward it, I'd like to see someone in the community start working toward a solution, instead of complaining about how there isn't one. Regards, Doug - Doug Hass ImageStream Internet Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
RE: FYI
> There is depending on the price. I'll freely admit however that I have not > priced the competitive serial sync cards that are currently supported > under FreeBSD, so I don't know how the WANic 400 or 500 stacks up against > them. For all I know right now there's someone just bringing a T1 interface > card to the market with integrated CSU that sells for $30 per card which > would make this entire discussion moot. $30 per card? Do tell, do tell. I'll buy 10,000 of them right now, and pay you $60 a card to buy them for me. What company would be foolish enough to offer a $30 T1 card? I have my credit card ready! Doug To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
RE: FYI
> The "hardware API" or the actual register interface code, is a binary-only > module that is "snapped in" to SAND. SAND is GPL and is similar to the > FreeBSD Netgraph module - it provides all the higher-level protocol stuff, > like > Frame Relay, PPP, HDLC, and such. SAND goes between the OS TCP/IP stack and > that binary only module. That's rather simplified, since SAND also does alot of other things, but you have the basics. > The reason that Imagestream went this road is that like Doug said, all > those hardware vendors like Rockwell think that there's something > valuable in a pure register interface spec publication for their > products. So, this way Imagestream can sign their souls away to get > access to that interface spec - but they isolate all that contaminated > code in this binary snap-in module. It's a hack of a solution but > unfortunately is getting more and more common under UNIX because the > Linux people have caved in and are busily screwing their own principles > of GPL, by soliciting ever greater amounts of closed-source, Linux code. > Imagestream isn't the only one out there doing this. Well, not exactly. The SAND architecture was written long before we ever licensed one line of code from ANYONE. The idea behind the hardware modules was very similar to what Netgraph provides. You can "snap in" new hardware, software or pre- and post-processing modules without having to make accomodations in the other code. > Now, you can make all the technical arguments you want about how a modularized > development environment like this allows code reuse and this is quite > true - but you must keep in mind that SAND's modularized development has > a primary goal of being able to keep the contaminated code in the driver > snap-in modules, code reuse is secondary. Again, this is incorrect. Code reuse and shorter devlopment cycles were the reason for SAND. The hardware module code is NOT all licensed code. With the exception of the ATM cards, there's more free code than licensed code in the hardware modules. > It's incorrect because it's perfectly possible to write a monolithic > driver under FreeBSD that's only available as an object module and > instead links in to the FreeBSD answer to SAND - which is Netgraph. > This is exactly how the WANic 400 driver is now. (except of course > the WANic 4xx driver is source available) It is possible to have a monolithic driver set, but it doesn't accomplish the objective that we have (and you noted): to have ONE code tree for ALL platforms (save Windows, which is a different animal altogether). We don't want to see a return to the monolithic drivers of old under ANY platform. I'm not saying that monolithic drivers aren't possible, just that they aren't going to happen again. > But you see that in this area SAND is no more standard than Netgraph is. > SAND provides Linux users that run WANic cards a lot of stuff - but it > is GPL which makes it difficult to use in many commercial FreeBSD > projects. I don't think the use of GPL or LGPL prevents anyone from using it in a commercial project with FreeBSD, Linux or any OS. ImageStream, and other companies, are successfully using GPL and LGPL code in commercial projects. > It's been discussed to death in this forum before but the worst possible > thing that Imagestream could have done was to put SAND under GPL. If you > had simply put it under BSD license then BOTH the BSD and Linux people > could have used it, in fact Netgraph may have never been written, and a > lot of other commercial UNIX's might have used it too (like Apple's > MacOS X) I'll disagree, but the discussion is digressing here from where we started. I'm as disinterested in a license war as I was in an OS war. > I believe you, I believe you. But, did the decision makers at SBS even know > that the BSD community currently can't use the 500 series and above? And > that discontinuting it would cut out that section of their market? Did you > guys know that? They knew it. We knew it. It was such a small portion of the total market that they didn't care. We care, which is why I'm taking the time to have this discussion with all of you. > During that time I've seen WANic or RISCom cards come up for bid exactly SIX > times. And, THREE of the times I was the sole bidder and bought them. The > other three times, well one was a 56K card, another the seller wanted $500 > (hah) and the other the seller wanted another rediculous amount. During that > time I've also kept tabs on what the commercial networking resale vendors > that I also buy from have been doing and I've not seen anything at all marked > RISCom, WANic, or Imagestream. So it's a limited option. I'd never buy commodity hardware used when you could buy it new for next to nothing (compared to even most USED Cisco gear). > 1) The cards are almost impossible to identify if they are just loose with > no documentation. Some vendors slap their moniker in unmistakab
RE: FYI
> > 1) FreeBSD users can still get the WANic 400 and RISCom cards from the > > second hand market, as another person mentioned. > > What is wrong with THIS picture? You're telling people to purchase used > hardware, instead of purchasing components from your company? *shakes his > head* Perhaps you missed the earlier post. Someone posted about purchasing used gear or auction gear to "go it on the cheap" so to speak. Personally, I think wasting money on used, out-of-warranty, unsupported gear is akin to playing Russian Roulette with your money. I'd buy new every time. > > > 2) WANic 400 series cards are still available in quantity. If the market > > for FreeBSD is as large as you claim, then you or someone else in the > > community should have no problem snapping up a quantity of these cards and > > reselling them to interested parties. I'll go one step further: If anyone > > contacts me about the WANic 400 series, mentions that they are for > > FreeBSD, I promise to give an extra 15% discount over and above our normal > > volume discounts just to illustrate my desire to support the FreeBSD > > community. > > Perhaps a better idea, if I may be so bold, would be to offer samples of > the newer cards (520 series, I believe they are) to FreeBSD developers > interested in producing drivers, software and utilities for these cards. > After all, you are saying that the 400 is EOL. Wouldn't the idea of > engineering samples be more beneficial to all involved? Those have ALWAYS been available. My phone rings all day. I pick it up, and it's never a BSD developer wanting to order cards and port drivers. :-) All you have to do is ask. Driver source, demo cards, and development tools have been available to the BSD community since 1995. To date, only BSDI took up the effort, and only briefly. Where are all the FreeBSD developers and why aren't they beating down my door for these samples and code? I'll get back to this in a minute. > > 3) Virtually ALL of our customers, save for OEMs making their own > > products, purchase complete routers. Going this route would eliminate the > > need to have FreeBSD support, as any user would have a standalone router. > > This sounds quite argumentative to me. Simply because everyone else is > buying a router, there's a refusal to support FreeBSD, since people with > "true routers" would have no need for using FreeBSD as a router engine. Nope--it's just a matter of laying out the options. There are 4--buy used, buy new in quantity, and buy routers. You can also develop drivers for the "new" cards (they aren't new--they've been out for 3 years). > It's a vicious cycle that I believe we're seeing here... chicken and the > egg, or rather, the driver and the market. Without a proper driver, there > won't be a market for this card to be used with FreeBSD. However, without > the manufacturer seeing visability in this market, there won't be a driver > as it would be a waste of their developers time. It's not a vicious cycle at all. Ted has said repeatedly in earlier e-mails that there is a large market for the 400/405 and that discontinuing them was foolish. I've actually proposed a solution that solves both problems. I'll recap for those who missed my earlier message: 1) If the *BSD community has the 400 series cards in such high demand, someone should step up and order them in quantity. This solves the issue with the cards not being available in one and two unit quantities. You'll have a ready supply from someone in the community, and you'll be supporting the community when you buy the cards from them. 2) If someone from the FreeBSD community orders the cards, ImageStream will put up a minimum of $8,100 for a developer or developer group to port drivers for the rest of the cards. Actually, it's 15% of the purchase price of any 400 series cards. The more "in demand" the current cards are, the more money we'll pledge to make sure that FreeBSd drivers exist for ALL of the cards. My phone number is below. If these cards and the future of the drivers are as important as everyone who has posted says they are, let's move quickly toward a solution. Regards, Doug - Doug Hass ImageStream Internet Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: FYI
In a private e-mail, Leo writes: > You offered a discount on these boards on the list. If you think there > is a real opportunity to sell these to the *BSD crowd, I recomend you > take that 15% (or some part of it) and offer to partially fund a driver > developer. There are many freelance programmers working on the project > who for $1000-$5000 (depending on complexity) could make your driver a > reality. A good developer could probably also make them work under > OpenBSD and NetBSD in one fell swoop. I'd be happy to pledge the 15% to a driver developer. That's a great idea! It will accomplish two objectives: 1) There will be at least 100 WANic 400 series cards available for purchase to support existing installations (assuming someone out there places the order). 2) ImageStream will pledge 15% of the purchase price of any lots of these 400 series cards toward porting of our SAND architecture to FreeBSD. That's a MINIMUM of $8,100 that ImageStream is willing to pay a developer or group of developers to port the drivers for the rest of the cards. Ted--you've indicated that there is a significant market for the 400 series cards in the community. Why don't you contact me privately and we'll get you an order of the cards so that we can accomplish the above. Regards, Doug - Doug Hass ImageStream Internet Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: FYI
> Would your agreements allow you to provide resources to a small > number of developers (under NDA and all that of course) to produce > drivers that you would then release in binary form (eg a kernel > module) under a free license? It sure would. > If you cannot release the source code to your drivers, can you > release hardware programming specifications (again, perhaps under > NDA) that allowed someone to develop an independant free licensed > driver? Unfortunately, the API to the cards (the driver development kit, hardware programming specifications or whatever you want to call them) are licensed from several third parties and we are bound by agreement not to make them public. The 400 series cards (and, for that matter, the RISCom/N2 series cards) did not require an API, which is how BSDI and FreeBSD drivers came about in the first place. As I mentioned above, we CAN license the driver code and the DDK for development. This means that you could produce FreeBSD drivers which we could then distribute in a binary form under a free end-user license. Regards, Doug - Doug Hass ImageStream Internet Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
RE: FYI
> And if you want to sell these to FreeBSD users then make your Linux driver > source (not the SAND stuff) available so that we can mod it into our own > driver. Many other companies do this and as a matter of fact, we (meaning > FreeBSD) have even found bugs in crummy Linux drivers that have been reported > back to Linux and helped those manufacturers better their products. I'm not going to get dragged into an OS war. Both Linux and FreeBSD have their share of "crummy" drivers and features. That discussion is honestly beyond the scope of a discussion of ImageStream's SAND architecture and the WANic 400 series. We are bound by third party agreements and are not allowed to release any more free code (legally) than we already have. If we were not restricted by SBS, Trillium, and Rockwell (among others), we would release all of the code under GPL or lGPL. These agreements do NOT prevent us from working with developers to support other platforms, though. It only prevents the free release of portions of the code. That being said, we're always interested in supporting a wide variety of platforms. Without the SAND architecture, though, there really is little hope of having FreeBSD support for the WANic 520 series cards (or other cards, for that matter). If there are developers in the community interested in porting SAND and the various hardware modules (for the 520 series and other cards) to FreeBSD, we'll be happy to work with them and support that effort. It is in ALL of our interests to have the widest support for standards-based technologies as possible. > No offense, but once Imagestream stopped selling WANic400's you > ceased being an entity of interest to FreeBSD, as you no longer sell > any products that run under it. I'll reiterate what I've said to you privately: ImageStream DID NOT make the decision to discontinue the 400 series or the RISCom/N2 series. This decision rested solely with SBS. However, FreeBSD users are NOT without options: 1) FreeBSD users can still get the WANic 400 and RISCom cards from the second hand market, as another person mentioned. 2) WANic 400 series cards are still available in quantity. If the market for FreeBSD is as large as you claim, then you or someone else in the community should have no problem snapping up a quantity of these cards and reselling them to interested parties. I'll go one step further: If anyone contacts me about the WANic 400 series, mentions that they are for FreeBSD, I promise to give an extra 15% discount over and above our normal volume discounts just to illustrate my desire to support the FreeBSD community. 3) Virtually ALL of our customers, save for OEMs making their own products, purchase complete routers. Going this route would eliminate the need to have FreeBSD support, as any user would have a standalone router. Regards, Doug - Doug Hass ImageStream Internet Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: FYI
Also--understand that the replacement for the 400 and 405 is a multi-interface card (supports all of the wiring specs instead of just 1), and costs virtually the same (or less as a reseller or in volume) than the 400/405 did. Doug On Sun, 14 Oct 2001, Jim Bryant wrote: > No offense to you or your sales partners, but the way I see it, this means that tons >of these will be available for a song on eBay > soon, and will be in the hands of a lot of FreeBSD and Linux people [not all of >which can afford top-of-the-line all of the time]. > > Doug Hass wrote: > > > Ted, > > > > We're SBS' worldwide distributor. Others who resell them buy them from us > > or from one of our distributors. In any case, I can ASSURE you without a > > doubt that the WANic 400 series and the entire RISCom/N2 series are end of > > life as of the end of September. > > > > If you have questions, feel free to contact me at your convenience. > > > > Regards, > > > > Doug > > > > - > > > > Doug Hass > > ImageStream Internet Solutions > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://www.imagestream.com > > Office: 1-219-935-8484 > > Fax: 1-219-935-8488 > > > jim > -- > ET has one helluva sense of humor! > He's always anal-probing right-wing schizos! > - > POWER TO THE PEOPLE! > - > "Religious fundamentalism is the biggest threat to > international security that exists today." > United Nations Secretary General B.B.Ghali > > > _ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: FYI
No offense taken--if I was in a position to need the 400 series cards, I'd be snapping up all the used and auction lots I could. Nortel just auctioned off about 1000 of them, so I'd expect that there will be a glut on the used market. If money is the only concern, those cards should be available on the secondary market for next-to-nothing for a long time. If performance, features and form factor are more important, there are better chipsets available on current cards. Both approaches have their merits. Doug On Sun, 14 Oct 2001, Jim Bryant wrote: > No offense to you or your sales partners, but the way I see it, this means that tons >of these will be available for a song on eBay > soon, and will be in the hands of a lot of FreeBSD and Linux people [not all of >which can afford top-of-the-line all of the time]. > > Doug Hass wrote: > > > Ted, > > > > We're SBS' worldwide distributor. Others who resell them buy them from us > > or from one of our distributors. In any case, I can ASSURE you without a > > doubt that the WANic 400 series and the entire RISCom/N2 series are end of > > life as of the end of September. > > > > If you have questions, feel free to contact me at your convenience. > > > > Regards, > > > > Doug > > > > - > > > > Doug Hass > > ImageStream Internet Solutions > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://www.imagestream.com > > Office: 1-219-935-8484 > > Fax: 1-219-935-8488 > > > jim > -- > ET has one helluva sense of humor! > He's always anal-probing right-wing schizos! > - > POWER TO THE PEOPLE! > - > "Religious fundamentalism is the biggest threat to > international security that exists today." > United Nations Secretary General B.B.Ghali > > > _ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
RE: FYI
Ted, We're SBS' worldwide distributor. Others who resell them buy them from us or from one of our distributors. In any case, I can ASSURE you without a doubt that the WANic 400 series and the entire RISCom/N2 series are end of life as of the end of September. If you have questions, feel free to contact me at your convenience. Regards, Doug ----- Doug Hass ImageStream Internet Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 On Sun, 14 Oct 2001, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > There are other vendors that sell the WanIC than Imagestream. I realize > that you see yourself as the only supplier but this isn't true. > > Ted Mittelstaedt [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide > Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com > > > >-Original Message- > >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Doug Hass > >Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 3:11 PM > >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Ted Mittelstaedt; MurrayTaylor; > >[EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Cc: Alfred Shippen > >Subject: Re: FYI > > > > > >I'm providing this to the people whose addresses appear in the original > >messages. My apologies if this gets cross-posted or sent multiple times > >to the same place. As I mention below, the WANic 400 series cards and all > >of the RISCom/N2 series cards are now End Of Life, and only available in > >special quantity builds. > > > >If anyone reading this message needs further information, please contact > >me directly and I can go into further depth about the EOL cards mentioned > >below and their replacements in the SBS line. > > > >Regards, > > > >Doug > > > >- > > > >Doug Hass > >ImageStream Internet Solutions > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >http://www.imagestream.com > >Office: 1-219-935-8484 > >Fax: 1-219-935-8488 > > > > > >On Fri, 12 Oct 2001, Doug Hass wrote: > > > >> The WANic 400 series is definitely EOL. The cards are available in > >> quantities of 100+ only by special order. The RISCom/N2 series cards are > >> also EOL. > >> > >> This is a recent decision--it went into effect as of September 21st. > >> Closeout quantities have already been sold to other companies, so the > >> cards are only available by special order. > >> > >> The WANic 521/522 have replaced these cards, and should be used instead. > >> There are no drivers for FreeBSD, however. > >> > >> Doug > >> > >> > >> > >> On Sat, 13 Oct 2001, Alfred Shippen wrote: > >> > >> > This guy is local to you and is under the misapprehension that > >the Risc/400 > >> > series is not a discontinued item. I dont know if you want to > >follow them up > >> > or not. My customer (Bytecraft) is fine by this and has passed on the > >> > comments to me. > >> > > >> > Cheers > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > >> > > - Original Message - > >> > > From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> > > To: "MurrayTaylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; > >> > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> > > Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 3:07 PM > >> > > Subject: RE: Imagestream WanIC-520 interface cards > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > > The WANic 5xx's use an incompatible chipset and the driver will not > >> > > > work with them. > >> > > > > >> > > > I thnk your supplier is feeding you a line of bullshit. SBS > >> > > Communications > >> > > > has posted no plans whatsover to discontinue or change the > >WANic line. > >> > > > They are fully aware that the 405's have open source drivers and are > >> > > > furthermore used in embedded systems too. > >> > > > > >> > > > The WANic 5xx series of cards sell for more money and so > >naturally your > >> > > > supplier is most interested in maximizing his margin and > >would prefer to > >> > > > push you into a more expensive card. > >> > > > > >> > > > With the increase in CPU power all of the go-fast hardwa
Re: FYI
I'm providing this to the people whose addresses appear in the original messages. My apologies if this gets cross-posted or sent multiple times to the same place. As I mention below, the WANic 400 series cards and all of the RISCom/N2 series cards are now End Of Life, and only available in special quantity builds. If anyone reading this message needs further information, please contact me directly and I can go into further depth about the EOL cards mentioned below and their replacements in the SBS line. Regards, Doug ----- Doug Hass ImageStream Internet Solutions [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 On Fri, 12 Oct 2001, Doug Hass wrote: > The WANic 400 series is definitely EOL. The cards are available in > quantities of 100+ only by special order. The RISCom/N2 series cards are > also EOL. > > This is a recent decision--it went into effect as of September 21st. > Closeout quantities have already been sold to other companies, so the > cards are only available by special order. > > The WANic 521/522 have replaced these cards, and should be used instead. > There are no drivers for FreeBSD, however. > > Doug > > > > On Sat, 13 Oct 2001, Alfred Shippen wrote: > > > This guy is local to you and is under the misapprehension that the Risc/400 > > series is not a discontinued item. I dont know if you want to follow them up > > or not. My customer (Bytecraft) is fine by this and has passed on the > > comments to me. > > > > Cheers > > > > > > > > > > > > - Original Message - > > > From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > To: "MurrayTaylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; > > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 3:07 PM > > > Subject: RE: Imagestream WanIC-520 interface cards > > > > > > > > > > The WANic 5xx's use an incompatible chipset and the driver will not > > > > work with them. > > > > > > > > I thnk your supplier is feeding you a line of bullshit. SBS > > > Communications > > > > has posted no plans whatsover to discontinue or change the WANic line. > > > > They are fully aware that the 405's have open source drivers and are > > > > furthermore used in embedded systems too. > > > > > > > > The WANic 5xx series of cards sell for more money and so naturally your > > > > supplier is most interested in maximizing his margin and would prefer to > > > > push you into a more expensive card. > > > > > > > > With the increase in CPU power all of the go-fast hardware on the > > > higher-level > > > > cards is less important. > > > > > > > > Consider that the Hitachi controller chip used on the WANic 405 is the > > > > SAME chip that Cisco uses in it's 25xx series of routers, and the Cisco > > > > 2501 is the most used router in the world and has the most installed > > > > units. > > > > > > > > SBS Communications is STILL selling the RISCom series of cards which is > > > > the predecessor to the WANic, uses the same controller, these are ISA > > > cards > > > > that have a design that's over 10 years old. > > > > > > > > You tell your supplier that since the 405 is being "phased out" that he > > > > should sell you a bunch of them at closeout prices. > > > > > > > > Ted Mittelstaedt > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's > > > Guide > > > > Book website: > > > http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com > > > > > > > > > > > > >-Original Message- > > > > >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of MurrayTaylor > > > > >Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 4:49 PM > > > > >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > >Subject: Imagestream WanIC-520 interface cards > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >As the WanIC-405 is being phased out (according to my supplier > > > > >down under here in OZ), has any development / testing been done on the > > > > >apparent replacement, the WanIC-521 (522, 524 ... ) range > > > > > > > > > >I am especially interested in its compatibility with its predecessor > > > > >which I am using very successfully for frame relay under Netgraph. > > > > > > > > > >I'm trying to get compatability info from the supplier here, > > > > >but we are a long way down the food chain ;-( > > > > > > > > > >Tia > > > > > > > > > >Murray Taylor > > > > >Bytecraft Systems Pty Ltd > > > > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
