What is the relationship between Intel and FreeBSD in regards to igb(4)?

[Kevin Oberman]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 8:33 AM, Tanel Rebane <tanel at rebane.se> wrote:
> I'm trying to wrap my head around the igb(4) drivers. As I've understood
> this driver is written by Intel and they distribute it from their Download
> Center. The driver also seems to be included in the default installation of
> FreeBSD (yet I can't seem to find anything relevant in src/sys/dev/igb).
> However, when comparing the igb(4) man page (of FreeBSD) and the readme for
> igb-2.2.3.tar.gz (of Intel) there are differences in supported devices.
>
> Am I right in suspecting that Intel does all the developing in-house and
> then, from time to time, their source gets pushed/synced with the FreeBSD
> source tree? Does that mean that current the man page for igb(4) lists
> fewer supported devices because igb(4) on FreeBSD itself is out of date? If
> that is the case, how often does FreeBSD pull new versions of igb from
> Intel?
>
> Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks!

Jack Vogel works for Intel and  writes and maintains the em and igb
drivers. He has recently mentioned that the Intel distribution may, on
occasion, lead the version committed to FreeBSD, but they are usually
identical.

An inconsistency between supported device types is probably an
oversight. Jack as a commit bit and he is the one who updates both
FreeBSD and the Intel distributions.

Jack posted information on this a week or two ago, but I don't seem to
find it, though I m sure it's in the archive, somewhere and the right
search terms will find it.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
E-mail: kob6558 at gmail.com