Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 12:19:34 -0500 (EST) From: Doug Hass <dhass@imagestream.com> To: Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org>, Jim Bryant <kc5vdj@yahoo.com>, MurrayTaylor <taylorm@bytecraft.au.com>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FYI Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.1011017120835.4443B-100000@ims1.imagestream.com> In-Reply-To: <200110171646.f9HGkHs00996@mass.dis.org>
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> > 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 dhass@imagestream.com http://www.imagestream.com Office: 1-219-935-8484 Fax: 1-219-935-8488 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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