Adaptec AAC raid support

[Jason Crawford]

The fact that the management utiltiy it uses is closed
binary-only-can't-distrubute type of utility, means it can't be used
by anyone who really cares about stability of their system,
development, or who just loves freedom. And won't be used by this
community which accounts for over 1,800 adaptec AAC raid controllers
alone, along with probably lots of other Adaptec hardware that won't
be upgraded to future Adaptec prodcuts.


On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:30:55 -0700, Scott Long <scottl at samsco.org> wrote:
> Bob Beck wrote:
> >>you guys want to produce fully open and unencumbered stuff.  That's
> >>wonderful.  But why is it so important to go around screaming and
> >>yelling about it and alientating those who do try to help?  Let me
> >>tell you, Doug is about the most positive and supportive guy you'll
> >>ever have at Adaptec, pissing him off really won't produce results.
> >>Why is it so important to drag your users into your political fights
> >>by depriving them of stuff that works now but isn't exactly everything
> >>that you want?  I'd love to have fully open stuff from all the RAID
> >>companies too, but I also want the users of FreeBSD to be able to use
> >>the resources that are out there to their full advantage and not be
> >>pinned down by my political beliefs on the subject.
> >
> >
> >       Actually Scott it's rather simple,
> >
> >       As long as projects are willing to have someone sign an NDA
> > and be a shill for the vendors, you end up with vendors who wish to hide
> > everything behind an NDA and produce binary only stuff. I as a user
> > don't want that, and plain and simple, I just bought 27 LSI cards for
> > that reason - I don't want to wait for non-free support to show up, and
> > I don't want to have to wedge in some binary only thing after the fact.
> > I want it to work with the OS, and be installed with it.
> >
> >       When vendors have the option to close their product and have
> > some few designated souls who will act as their shills and put in a
> > non-free layer for a free os, then they don't release docs, and everyone
> > suffers with poor support - with a driver that doesn't work by default
> > in the OS, because it can't be included. With a driver that isn't
> > redistributable in commercial spinoffs, because it can't be included.
> > With a driver that I can't install onto, because it can't be included
> > on the install sets. Basically, the binary only closed source nda stuff
> > sucks, just like the altheros driver.
> >
> >       I don't see supporting a verdor making a decision to NDA their
> > product by finding ways to sneak non-free support in as productive,
> > Actually, I see that this harms the free community, and harms it an
> > awful lot. because now this vendor instead of providing documentation
> > so the free community can truly have community support for this product,
> > gets to pay lip service to the free os world and say "sure we are
> > supported by free operating systems" when really they aren't.
> >
> >       Involving the user community makes sure the user community
> > knows what the score is, and knows what products to buy (case in point,
> > my recent purchase of 27 LSI adapters, rather than Adaptec). I think
> > letting the user community believe that a company is fully supportive
> > of free operating systems when they really are not is dishonest to the
> > user community, and screws them in the end when they make bad purchasing
> > decisions.
> >
> >       I think a company has every right to have a closed source,
> > binary only driver. I think the user community has the right to know
> > about that, ask for better, and if they don't like it, know to vote
> > with their feet. I for one don't want to see a situation where I can't
> > install an OS on a scsi controller without resorting to 3rd party
> > special license packages, or at least, not on a controller I've paid
> > good money for.
> >
> >       -Bob
> 
> What part of the FreeBSD AAC driver is closed, emcumbered, or otherwise
> non-free?
> 
> Scott
> 
>