Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 00:14:54 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: <Nyteckjobs@aol.com> Cc: <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>, <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>, <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: (no subject) Message-ID: <000801c17977$17380160$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <13f.5595ba1.293827ad@aol.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>-----Original Message----- >From: Nyteckjobs@aol.com [mailto:Nyteckjobs@aol.com] >Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 4:07 PM >To: tedm@toybox.placo.com >Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; >freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org >Subject: Re: (no subject) > > >In a message dated 11/29/2001 7:16:17 AM Eastern Standard Time, >tedm@toybox.placo.com writes: > >> Well, let me give you something else to put in your pipe and smoke. :-) >> >> I've spent about $800 on a few WANic 4xx cards (used, I'll grant) >precisely >> because >> source for the driver is available. I happen to not use them with Frame >> circuits so >> I used the HDLC in the driver. >> >> I have spent $0.00 on ET cards precisely because the driver code is >> unavailable. >> >> Now, as I've never used ET cards, I'll take your statement at face value >> that >> their drivers are superior to the WANic one. >> But, I'm not going to pick a superior binary-only driver over an inferior >source-freely-available driver, if I have a choice. You may think this is >screwy but it's how I feel. > >You are entitled to your opinion, but you (and others) should explain that >when you are making "recommendations" because Im sure there are those that >actually think that you are recommending the best solution, which clearly >isnt the case. Most people prefer a boom-box to a crystal set, and those >reading your opinions don't understand that context. > But I do, as a matter of fact. The whole thread on the WANic that got fired up a month ago or so when they made their announcement that they were dumping the WANic 405 was centered around the fact that this was just one less synchronous serial interface card that had an open source driver available. I was not arguing that we should dump a lot of effort into a binary-only driver for the successor cards, the WANic 5xx series, I was arguing for disclosure of the registers for it. It was rapidly made clear by Imagestream that they were totally uninterested in going back to SDL, Rockwell and one other company I forget which and arguing for such disclosure. After that I suggested to some other people that got interested in it that a binary driver was possible under NDA, but I certainly wasn't advocating it by that statement. I happen to know that there's a Nokia developer somewhere working on a binary driver for the 5xx series and FreeBSD 2.2.8. But I cannot recommend WANic cards anymore because there's no guarentee that this driver will ever leave Nokia, or even be completed. And as far as other sync cards for FreeBSD, I have no experience with them and they are much more recent additions. As of now the ET cards have a compelling advantage over the rest of the sync cards for FreeBSD because they have more history of use under it. >I seem to remember reading in some book that the main advantage FreeBSD has >over linux is its corporate-friendly license (who wrote that thing >anyway?)...yet you bash the concept of using the license. It seems a bit >hypocritcal to me. > As a matter of fact, in that book your taking about, on page 193 it specifically list the Evergreen Technologies synchronous serial card along with the WANic as T1 interface cards into FreeBSD. And it also states on that same page that using a Cisco as a T1 interface router is "safer but more expensive" followed by a list of paragraphs that explain why the extra money is worth the hassle. Nowhere in there is any discussion or statement that the card and driver set that has the open source driver (ie: the WANic) is "better" than the card and driver that has a binary-only driver (ie: the ET card) Of course, all this was written before the bottom dropped out of the used router market, today you can get a 1601 and DSU for $400 and it's extremely difficult to justify use of a PC as a leaf-node router because it simply isn't as resistant to physical environmental stresses as a total hardware router with no moving parts. I still argue that anyone running BGP and multihoming T1's (which probably describes 3/4 of the smaller ISP's in the world) can get better performance at a lower price from a FreeBSD router with sync cards in it than the Cisco recommended solution (3660 or 7200 series or greater) But even the prices on used high-end Cisco gear are falling and it could be argued that this may not be true anymore. As far as the debate between an open source driver vs a closed source driver, I'll say this much about this issue in regards to T1 cards. Simply put the T1 interface hasn't changed in 20 years (probably a lot longer) and given the glacial pace of change of the US phone system, I expect that there will be T1's still being provisioned when I'm an old Grandpa with my beard down to my knees. I routinely purchase DSU's today on the seconds market for use with brand new T1 installs that have manufacture dates of the late 80's. I have a concern about the ET cards because if I bought an ET card today for use in a router I would expect to be able to use that card for another 20 years, or at least until the PCI slot is no longer available on PC hardware. Buying a card that has binary only drivers ties you to a specific version of the OS - what if something happens to ET? As far as I know about Evergreen Technologies, the source code for the drivers is not being held in Escrow by anyone. Thus if the main developer at ET gets hit by a bus tomorrow, the code dies with him, and the cards will never be able to be used in a future FreeBSD version. I'd feel a lot better about ET cards if there was a public statement on the website that in the event ET ceases to exist as an entity, or decides to stop supporting FreeBSD, that the FreeBSD driver source would be immediately donated to FreeBSD as open source. You might be surprised but at the ISP I work at we currently use a billing system called Billmax that was originally developed on FreeBSD. This system has part of it's code in binary-only. When I selected them as the accounting system to use several years ago, code escrow was a mandatory requirement by us and they happily complied. I'm not opposed to binary-only software on FreeBSD but there's a difference between companies that write software for FreeBSD and use binary-only releases to help preserve competitive advantage, and companies that just simply don't release source, period. It's quite possible to do controlled releases where you implement some new idea in a binary module and keep it binary for a few years, then when you have made your profit on it you open it up, because by then you have the next new idea implemented and are making your money off of that one. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?000801c17977$17380160$1401a8c0>