Compatible NIC

[Jorn Argelo]

> The "charter" of this list is for people who want answers about 
> FreeBSD to be able to get them. I felt it necessary to join when I 
> noticed that EVERYONE on the list cheerfully steers poor suckers 
> into using 5.x, even though it appears, after having to beat it out 
> of them, everyone pretty much admits that 5.x isn't better than 4.x 
> at the moment, and that even 5.3 is going to be a lower performer. 
> To me, "spinning" the tale of 5.x to those in search of real answers 
> is "violating" the charter, unless the charter has changed to 
> "shamelessly steering everyone to use 5.x for internal, political purposes".

Everyone? Who exactly is everyone? What value do your arguments have without 
facts? You should prove it, by means of a survey done by a professional 
company for instance. If it turns out that more then 75% of the FreeBSD users 
are unhappy with 5.x, then you have a valid argument. But now it is nothing 
more then saying that Osama Bin Laden is dead. You don't have any prove at 
all.

> I was asked for an explanation as to why I question 
> drivers written by a certain developer, and I provided the info. 
> Instead of credible counterpoint, I was told that I was wasting 
> people's time. How am I wasting someone's time when I'm telling them 
> not to use drivers that very likely have flaws? How are you helping 
> someone by cheerfully recommending things known to be poorly done? 
> To not hurt the developer's feelings? Is this "forum" about helping 
> users or about coddling developers? Optimizing a driver is as 
> important as making it bug free. If they do a half-assed job then 
> criticism is warranted.

If you don't like the driver, why don't you do a better job instead? It's fine 
with me to say that you don't like the driver, but why don't you do 
suggestions to the original author then? That will help alot more then 
complaining about it on the list. Or, even better, make your own driver. 

>  Its easy to dismiss people who ask hard questions as "trolls". Its
> a lot more difficult to answer the questions credibly. 

Seems fairly obvious to me. You're claiming things without valuable arguments.
I mean, for christ's sake, you're saying that a production release has better 
performance then a development release. Duh. Even my mom can come up with 
that. Why does 5.x make that automatically bad? If you don't like 5.x, or 
FreeBSD in particular, you should hook up with our friend Linus Torvalds, or 
even Mr. Gates if you prefer.

It's all right with me to share your opinion, but you shouldn't do it this 
way. It's doing nobody any good. Hook up to the current list and elaborate why 
you feel that the driver is bad, and what you think that can be improved. Now 
you're doing nothing else then saying things without improving anything.

Jorn

(In case I'm double posting now, my mail server has been down a few days, so I 
might have missed something)