Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 17:52:23 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Marc Slemko <marcs@znep.com> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: More on the Intel-UNIX standard Message-ID: <19980921175223.Y8807@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.02A.9809202258210.8094-100000@redfish>; from Marc Slemko on Sun, Sep 20, 1998 at 11:05:22PM -0700 References: <19980921144910.T8807@freebie.lemis.com> <Pine.GSO.4.02A.9809202258210.8094-100000@redfish>
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On Sunday, 20 September 1998 at 23:05:22 -0700, Marc Slemko wrote: > On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Greg Lehey wrote: > >> Not so. I saw considerable merit. The Linux people seemed to take >> the attitude "If we can't get source for it, we won't support it". I >> tried to make it clear that if it became mainstream (as is quite >> possible), we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot by ignoring it. >> There was also considerable confusion about the difference between UDI >> and I2O. > > Even worse is what is going on on linux-kernel right now; people ranting > about how Linux needs to implement it but have a versoning scheme to force > each driver to be recompiled for each version of the kernel to force > people to release source and recompile for each kernel version. > > That just isn't my idea of "free" software. Presumably you're talking about whatever Linux people call their alternatives to LKMs. I think this is an *excellent* idea. If you don't agree, I'll give you a copy of vinum about 6 weeks old. Try to run it on a current -current (sorry) and watch things go up in flames. As long as the kernel contains dependencies which change in the course of time, you need to ensure that all components are matched. This isn't my idea of free software, it's my idea of common sense. >>> The major problems seen by the group were: >>> >>> 1) Binary-only device drivers are a bad idea. It will reduce the chances >>> of us getting access to the hardware interface specs, and therefore >>> being able to build a device driver that works. >> >> Agreed (I hope you do too). But it looks as if we're going to have >> sources. > > If a vendor doesn't release their specs now, this isn't likely to change > that. Sources and specs aren't the same thing. And lots of people don't release sources immediately simply because they're not ready yet. > If a vendor does release their specs now, they have a reason for doing so. > What is that reason? I think you will find that a lot of the same > reasoning still applies. This is especially true when you consider that > if this does become reality, it won't do so instantly, so even once they > do have UDI drivers released, many of the reasons why people want specs > today still apply in the short term. I'm not sure what you're saying here. > In fact, some of the reasons why many vendors don't want to release > driver source are due to their own little tricks to get more performance > out of specific platforms that they don't want others to see, and the > sheer hassle of releasing source for all the different platforms they make > drivers for. Sure, but there are indications that this isn't the case for UDI. We were told (but I haven't verified) that the Linux crowd were to be involved in this stuff from the beginning. My main concern was whether this would apply to FreeBSD as well, but considering the religious purity of the Linux users, they'd presumably want it under GPL. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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