aac support

[John Knight]

Mark Keating wrote:

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: owner-misc at openbsd.org [mailto:owner-misc at openbsd.org] 
>>On Behalf Of Tobias Weingartner
>>Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 9:54 PM
>>To: Sean Hafeez
>>Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org; misc at cvs.openbsd.org; 
>>weingart at tepid.org
>>Subject: Re: aac support 
>>
>>On Saturday, March 19, Sean Hafeez wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>There has got to be a better way to work with the vendors 
>>>      
>>>
>>in order to 
>>    
>>
>>>get the support we need. It just seem to me that the "screw 
>>>      
>>>
>>you guys, 
>>    
>>
>>>I am going home" stuff just does not work.
>>>      
>>>
>>Other approaches have been tried.  Extensively, and for a long time.
>>If you know of an approach that works, please demonstrate.  
>>At this point, I believe that the community would welcome 
>>someone that is going to step up, and have adaptec supply the 
>>documentation because they negotiated it out of them.  Words 
>>here are cheap... but at the current time, they are the only 
>>thing we really have left.  The voice of the community.
>>
>>
>>    
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>>>The vendors need a business
>>>case in order to do things - they are in business to make 
>>>      
>>>
>>money and I 
>>    
>>
>>>can agree with that.
>>>      
>>>
>>They have a business case.  More than one.  1800+ cards is 
>>not a business case?  The points I brought up are not a 
>>business case?  The bad press and such are not a business 
>>case?  Give me a break.
>>
>>
>>--Toby.
>>
>>    
>>
>I work for one of these vendors.  I know the release of documentation on one
>of the RAID controllers this company shipped for several years was not based
>on logic, let alone a $ amount.  The decision was left to a single manager
>who waffled back and forth about whether the information should be released.
>The engineer who was pushing for the docs to be available eventually
>published them on a web site, indicating his company email address as a
>point of contact.  It was a gutsy, yet arbitrary decision on his part that
>led to the opening of docs.  After the release of the docs, the company
>started publishing their 'friedliness' to OSS.
>
>My experience tells me the only way to get the attention of people in a
>large company like Adaptec is to take drastic measures.  If this means
>emailing people who can affect change until they are sufficiently annoyed to
>make a decision one way or another, so be it.  It is most likely one of the
>few methods that will work.  There is most likely a single person who will
>make the decision and it may boil down to whether they are having a good day
>or not.  If their response is 'no', it will be stated that this is due to
>'contractual obligations', 'intellectual property', 'on the advice of our
>lawyers..' or some other rubbish.
>
>As a user of OpenBSD, I am glad to see this stance taken (again).  The
>people I admire in life are the people that stand up for their principles
>and are true to themselves and their beliefs.  The people I despise are
>those that gladly sacrifice their stated beliefs to increase their wealth or
>comfort.
>
>OpenBSD does not support all of the hw I use.  This is due to some of the hw
>being 'closed'.  Some of it is not supported because the developers have not
>had enough interest in writing the driver.  I did what I could by providing
>hw to some of the developers in the hope that it will be supported one day.
>Some of this hw is made by the company I work for, but it had to be provided
>out of my pocket because the company is too short sighted to see the benefit
>of providing hw to the OpenBSD team.  They do freely use OpenSSH in a number
>of products however...
>
>It is unpopular these days to speak directly on issues.  In my lowly
>opinion, Theo can be abrasive at times and I do not always agree with him.
>He seems to be morally and intellectually honest, and this is rare.  The
>operating system he and the rest of the developers have given to us is true
>to their stated goals and has served me very well.  For all of these
>reasons, I stand behind the OpenBSD team and will add Adaptec to the list of
>vendors I will not use or recommend (Intel, Broadcom, etc).
>
>mark
>
>
>
>
>  
>
I just wanted to echo your assertion that the decision to release 
documentation is often arbitrary, and almost always misinformed on the 
part of the decision maker(s).  Recently, I've been involved in an off 
list conversation with Theo largely on this issue.  Off list only 
because I needed to introduce myself to him, and didn't want to bore the 
world with personal details.

However,  a little on list boring might be useful at this point.  I'm 
heavily involved with digital intellectual property but I'm also a 
programmer.  As a result, I can usually understand and speak the various 
languages with the various parties in such a way they can actually 
understand what each party is concerned with.  I've found that 
surprisingly the various groups controlling access to technical 
information in companies really in fact do not understand the issues 
involved very well.

In my experience programmers can't communicate well with managers, 
managers can't communicate well with lawyers, and lawyers can't 
communicate with anyone.  The mass dissonance is not surprising, nor is 
it the anyone's fault.  Each group is trained to do very different 
things.  Unfortunately, the resulting global uncertainty creates global 
paranoia leading to a general mentality of "protect first, ask questions 
later" when it comes to anything that could remotely be considered 
intellectual property.  End result, people are afraid to provide 
information, and everyone loses.

If anyone who is lobbying for documentation necessary for OBSD runs up 
against these arguments, I would be happy to see if I can help out. I've 
followed OpenBSD for several years now and would like to contribute what 
I can.  Its a great project in a number of ways.  Just send me an email 
when you think my skills might be helpful.  No promises, but maybe I can 
help with a slightly different approach yielding more favorable results 
in those circumstances.

John Knight