Are hardware vendors starting to bail on FreeBSD ... ?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "User Freebsd" <freebsd at hub.org>
To: "Darrin Chandler" <dwchandler at stilyagin.com>
Cc: "Nikolas Britton" <nikolas.britton at gmail.com>; "FreeBSD Questions"
<freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: Are hardware vendors starting to bail on FreeBSD ... ?


>
> My point isn't that I *liked* binary-only drivers ... my point is that I'd
> rather a company like Adaptec to *at least* supply a binary driver if they
> require their specs to be closed, then provide *no means* for me to use
> Adaptec products ...
>

No, that's not the way of Open Source.  You cannot advocate binary only
drivers for an open source OS, it is a slippery slope.  What is sauce for
the
goose must be sauce for the gander.  It is philosophy bankrupt to demand
binary support without the source code.

You gave Adaptec a good shot - you gave them a chance to keep supporting
you.  They failed.  It isn't your fault for upgrading, and it isn't FBSD's
fault
for changing so the binary blob doesen't work right anymore.

> How many out there are *still* running 4.x on their servers and desktops,
> for similar fears?
>

I usually go gradually on upgrading, so I'll see problems like this long
before
I've changed over any significant percent of my servers.

Ted