Adaptec

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org wrote:
> hi tomas,
>
>
> of course, my driver does not support all the proprietary and bleeding
> edge features, like the binary-blob does, but everything for basic
> operation is mostly done. it's the choice of the freebsd _users_ if
> they want to lose their freedom to get some "features" (and pleased
> manufacturers) or if they want to have free software with all of it's
> benefits.
>

One of these days atheros will decide it's time to obsolete all those
devices out there so as to attempt to get people to buy new ones.  When
that happens, the binary-blob won't work anymore.  When that happens your
driver will be the only option.

>
> so it's absolutely correct from theo to cc the freebsd-questions@
> mailing list because it's a _main_question_! we care about freebsd,
> netbsd and even linux because this behaviour hurts the entire open
> source community. more and more manufacturers are having success with
> getting their binary-blobs into "free" operating systems. what next?
>

Such a scenario is simply not viable over the long term.  The
manufacturer
always has to pay to write new blobs for new OS versions.  Once the
manufacturer decides to stop spending money writing new blobs, a
decision that is inevitable, the blobs won't work any longer and the
blob will go away.

Ted