From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jul 28 11:23:26 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 41D262A2; Sun, 28 Jul 2013 11:23:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wjw@digiware.nl) Received: from smtp.digiware.nl (unknown [IPv6:2001:4cb8:90:ffff::3]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 006592992; Sun, 28 Jul 2013 11:23:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from rack1.digiware.nl (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.digiware.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id CA2E8153434; Sun, 28 Jul 2013 13:23:22 +0200 (CEST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at digiware.nl Received: from smtp.digiware.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by rack1.digiware.nl (rack1.digiware.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id i1E6jdLdtNWg; Sun, 28 Jul 2013 13:23:22 +0200 (CEST) Received: from [IPv6:2001:4cb8:3:1:921:5fd2:d0ea:b474] (unknown [IPv6:2001:4cb8:3:1:921:5fd2:d0ea:b474]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.digiware.nl (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id CF7EE153433; Sun, 28 Jul 2013 13:23:21 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <51F4FF2A.2000500@digiware.nl> Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 13:23:22 +0200 From: Willem Jan Withagen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130620 Thunderbird/17.0.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Alexander Motin Subject: Getting documentation. ( Was Re: Reset Problem with SATA Port Multiplier) References: <51F4F12F.80003@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <51F4F12F.80003@FreeBSD.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Dieter BSD , freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 11:23:26 -0000 On 28-7-2013 12:23, Alexander Motin wrote: > Just recently I've made one more > attempt to get some documentation on SATA controllers from Marvell. But > even after signing NDA process again stopped since I am neither buying > thousands of their chips as vendor nor they are supporting for > end-users. The alike situation is with other vendors. I heard from several board design houses and distributors that Marvell is among the hardest to get the stuff from. So your story is not unlike other stories I've heard. In our previous company we needed support from a rather big chip vendor as well... (Philips NXP) which sort of worked while they were still in Eindhoven. But once this division got sold, things got a lost worse. And in the end we had to got thru the designer/manufacturer of our boards, and a second tier distributor. And again everything under the original NDA. Perhaps this is somethings you could also do for this problem. Find a coorperative PM board manufacturer, and bigback on their support with the promise to "support" their PM boards in FreeBSD. Motivation for them would have to be that there could be a sales advantage in selling PM boards to FreeBSDers. And given that we advertise that ZFS does not need complex/expensive RAID controllers will increase the usage of more simple devices. Otehr way about it would be to involve the FreeBSD foundation, and get them to do the legal part of the stuff as a umbrella for the developers, and then delegate (again under NDA) work to developers that want to work on Marvell stuff. --WjW