Why FreeBSD not popular on hardware vendors

[Chad Perrin]

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 11:45:20PM -0600, Tyson Boellstorff wrote:
> On Thursday 11 December 2008 19:58:14 Chad Perrin wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 05:00:11PM -0800, prad wrote:
> > > On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:28:13 -0700
> > >
> > > i don't think that's really what is happening, chad.
> > > i think there is just some disagreement as to what is considered an
> > > improvement.
> >
> > So . . . are you saying that increased support for 3D accelerated
> > graphics is not an "improvement", and should therefore not be considered
> > a worthy goal?
> >
> 
> Not so much considered 'unworthy' as it is a balancing of limited resources. 
> If I was a hardware programmer, had unlimited time, beer, and cheese dip, I'd 
> add everything just because I could.

I don't think anyone said anything about taking development effort away
from, for instance, the network virtualization project to put into
achieving better 3D accelerated graphics -- just that it would be nice if
we had better support for 3D accelerated graphics.  One need not entirely
write off the notion of putting more effort into one thing to assure that
we don't cease putting effort into another.  One of the great things
about open source development is that, often, more development talent can
be found for new projects from people just idling around the periphery.


> 
> It would be cool if there was a way to ensure that all <foo> items would be 
> supported. However, even then, high performance video would lag. It is often 
> proprietary, and many vendors simply won't publish their specs and need a 
> reverse engineer to get any support at all. You can't force them to do it, 
> and in the case of an open source OS, they may not want the world+dog to see 
> their code for any number of reasons. nVidia is a rare exception, and even 
> they are not going to put FreeBSD support at the top of their list. 

What does that have to do with whether or not it's a good idea to solicit
graphics and driver developers who aren't already doing something to work
on it, if they're so inclined?


> 
> Long story short, there's room for all types. Enjoy the diversity. Fix what 
> you can. Avoid the problems you can. Use the appropriate tools for their best 
> purposes.

Judging by the responses of some people on this list, there *isn't* room
for all types.  That's my problem with this whole mess.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
Quoth Georg Hackl: "American beer is the first successful attempt at
diluting water."
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 195 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20081212/4d818327/attachment.pgp