Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 17:59:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> To: dennis@etinc.com (Dennis) Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: xl driver for 3Com Message-ID: <199905292159.RAA01509@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> In-Reply-To: <199905291712.NAA13802@etinc.com> from "Dennis" at May 29, 99 12:08:55 pm
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Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Dennis had to walk into mine and say: > >Then *FIND THEM OUT*! Replacing the cards does not fix the problem! How > >is anybody supposed to be able to help you if a) you never tell anybody > >about the trouble, b) you destroy the test configuration where the problem > >occurs, thereby assuring that nobody will be able to duplicate it again, > >and c) you don't even lift a finger to investigate! > > I dont want help, That's too bad because you really need it! > I recommended Intel cards, the customer used 3coms > because "someone told them they were good cards", they had problems, and I > said "I told you so". Im just relaying the info..if I had REAL info as the > what the problem was I would have told you, but commercial sites are not > the place to be debugging problems. They are the *perfect* place to be debugging problems! Who do you think causes most of them!? And just what kind of information did you think you were relaying? Couldn't you be bothered to invest a few seconds to at least find out what version of FreeBSD they had? > I have no stake in 3com cards (they are > problematic in LINUX as well)...maybe the cards are flawed? Its not my > problem. It *is* your problem. Supposing you can't get Intel cards anymore. Then what're you going to do. > Not that I wouldnt like to help, but when I have a company president > calling me to complain that the box is going down Im in no position to say > "stick with the 3com cards, they'll have them running soon." Its the way > it is. No, that's not the way it is. You can't play musical hardware forever. Sooner or later you're going to run into a situation where you won't have another hardware option, and then your company president is going to find out just how useless you are and replace you. > You need to find beta test sights (gee, columbia might be a good > one, huh?) to do testing. Commercial sites are no place for such things. You just don't get it do you! In order to be able to fix a problem, you have to be able to duplicate it! I have tons of 3Coms here and they all work perfectly! If somebody has a problem with one, it's because they've put together a particular hardware and software configuration that triggers some pathological behavior. It's not fair then to expect somebody to be able to fix your problem if you don't make even the tiniest effort to explain what kind of configuration you have! Just who the hell are these famous customers of yours? Didn't it occur to you suggest that they file a bug report so that maybe their problem could be fixed and save them from having to buy new cards? This would not take a huge amount of time or effort! > I used to recommend DEC cards, and now the driver sucks, so I dont. I > recommend DEC or Intel in LINUX, because they work best. I dont care what > they use, and Im not concerned about the 35 drivers that have problems > under load. I cant be. I dont have time, and what's the difference? All > cards have the same functionality. The difference is that not everybody has access to all hardware! The difference is that not everybody can afford all hardware! The difference is that all cards don't get manufactured forever! The difference is that if you can't be bothered to get off you ass and actually report bugs properly and take some time to try testing a fix, pretty soon nobody will want to be bothered writing software for you anymore! > hey, you want to be famous, you gotta take some punches. When my drivers > have bugs, I take it on the chin. Part of the developer experience. :-) Don't you smiley at me! How would you feel if people just gradually stopped buying your products, and then one day you found out that it was was because of some silly little bug in your code that you could have fixed in fiv minutes if only somebody had cared enough to actually tell you about it? You'd be pretty pissed off, wouldn't you! More than that, your boss would be pretty pissed off too! So, tell me: just how many of you other people reading this have been having problems with 'drivers under load' and couldn't be bothered to actually report the problem? Hm? Well what're you waiting for?! Go on: speak up! Take two minutes of your precious time! I dare you! I double-dare you! No, I *triple*-dare you! Take your best shot! -Bill -- ============================================================================= -Bill Paul (212) 854-6020 | System Manager, Master of Unix-Fu Work: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research Home: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City ============================================================================= "It is not I who am crazy; it is I who am mad!" - Ren Hoek, "Space Madness" ============================================================================= To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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