OpenBSD Clashes with Adaptec In Quest for Docs 367
TrumpetPower! writes "OpenBSD developers have been asking for documentation from Adaptec for over four months. Adaptec's response has been to deliberately misunderstand what is being asked of them. A former Adaptec employee admits that the hardware is buggy and tricky to get right. So, as a result, OpenBSD 3.7 will ship without Adaptec RAID support. Personally, I'm glad that Theo isn't resting on his laurels."
Why just OpenBSD? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why just documentation? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are under an obligation to provide usefulness on legit architectures, but they aren't doing that. Adaptec should get over their shame of bugs, and allow the driver people at OpenBSD a chance at making things work.
There is no general fix for this problem, often specs are released way too late. On the other hand, releasing open source drivers will open specs for the same device. These specs aren't just trade secrets, they're actually necessary for building drivers.
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly what obligation does Adaptec have?
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think the company has the right to refuse to release specs, but we don't have the right to complain or to reverse engineer them, and that they have the right to whine to the gov't if we do so.
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Informative)
And how else do you propose to effect change? Shut and sit down isn't going to work is it?
Whining, boycotting, shaming, humiliating, mocking, deriding, bitching and moaning is a perfectly appropriate response to an idiot company acting in stupid ways.
More people need to get uppity. Sitting quietly at your desk doing exactly what you are told isn't going to get you anywhere.
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the markets they choose to cater to. I don't see OpenBSD listed anywhere on their site, so I doubt that OpenBSD users are in their target market. Microsoft only produces Windows for Intel compatible hardware, but I have several Suns. Does Microsoft now have an obligation to me to produce a SPARC version of Windows because apperently not doing so would be 'a foolish move on [Microsoft's] part and stock holders should be pissed at them turning thie
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nowadays, I purchase equipment based more on its compatibility with FreeBSD (and occasionally OpenBSD) than any other factor (incl. performance and price), as that's what it's going to be used with.
As far as responsibility or obligation is concerned, Adaptec's got none to the Open Source community, unless you can consider it a direct failure of its responsibility to its shareholders. Just because Open Source is "fighting the good fight", doesn't mean anyone owes us anything.
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:2, Insightful)
An obligation to their shareholders (Score:2)
... not to unnecessarily push customers to choose a competitor's products, when keeping those customers costs nothing more than an e-mailed PDF or two.
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:2)
There is a good reason why, and not just because it is in their best interest to do it. They are selling hardware. They should support any large enough group that wants to use the hardware, regardless of how they want to use it. If people want to use the chip to power easy bake ovens, they should help them turn the chip into a heating element.
Why should they? Because it is a publicly traded company. Shareholders don't care why people are handi
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows does not have 90% of the server market.
No, people expect to be given enough product information to enable them to author dev
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Informative)
If we accept the claims made in the article, Adaptec won't even release the technical information necessary for people to write their own. That's what the argument is about.
Actually, nobody seems to expect that. Unquestionably a fair number of people would be happy if it happened, but nobody expects it. What people do expect is for Adaptec to release comprehensive technical specifications for their cards to interested parties, a practice that used to be commonplace among hardware makers but has been in lamentable decline for some time now. Releasing the tech specs would benefit not only OpenBSD developers but Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS, and others, and while your assertion is correct that Windows has a >90% market share on the desktop, it's somewhat of a non-sequitur considering we're talking about drivers for a RAID controller that's more likely to go into a server machine. Windows still dominates in that market, as well, but not to the extent that it does on the desktop. By releasing the necessary specs and letting the open source community write drivers that work with their hardware Adaptec could, at very little cost to themselves, expand their potential customer base by 10-20%. Why won't they?
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was Adaptec I'd realize that most people who buy RAID hardware are not planning to run a desktop computer with Windows. They're likely planning to run some sort of server, which I'm sure have much more than 5% of users running a non-windows OS.
According to Netcraft, there are nearly 2500000 sites hosted on FreeBSD (source [netcraft.com]). This number does not include sites hosted on NBSD and OBSD (obviously).
"Everyone on here expects companies to spend millions in development and bend over backwards for their own purposes."
This wouldn't be millions in development. It would take one guy 10 minutes to e-mail the hardware specs (which they'd have to have available somewhere for them to have written their own driver) to the OpenBSD team and be done with it.
"Adaptec isn't interested in OpenBSD because it's not in their best financial interest, despite their best intentions."
Look at it this way, if you were a stockholder in Adaptec and were told millions of potential customers would not be able purchase your hardware because the company refused to release the specs for it, how would you feel?
ND
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:3, Insightful)
They want documentation for the hardware. Maybe a few hundred dollars for printing and shipping if they don't have it in electronic form. They must already have the docs, as they would be required for their own developers to write the Windows drivers.
This is a one time cost and can be recovered with a tiny number of sales. The OpenBSD developers want to do all the development themselves, so
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps at this point I should quote part of Doug Anderson's reply?
Some choice quotes:
You say "We have to be realistic here and realize that we have to make it worth it for companies like Adaptec to support Linux or in this case, OpenBSD. Adaptec isn't interested in OpenBSD because it's not in their best financial interest, despite their best intentions." Well, from their email:
Why not? They aren't looking for specific support for ONE operating system. They are looking for documentation that explains how the hardware ticks. This has nothing to do with operating specific information: the operating system DEVELOPERS will work this out THEMSELVES, they don't want an Adaptec supplied driver!!! I would suggest that, by Adaptec's own admission if "you [OpenBSD] as well as many other flavors of Linux/Unix are looking for the same thing" then the OpenBSD project is not the only one having issues with Adaptec documentation and that the Theo has been the one to make the biggest stink about it so far.
Then we get this:
"We are coming out with an entire new rev of our firmware with the upcoming SAS/SATA-2 release in the July timeframe, and our plan is to provide a Software Development Kit (SDK), which will be generic in nature, and will have the documentation in hand that will help you to do the work on your side to continue to expand the support for Adaptec
products in your OpenBSD OS...."
So what?!? Are they saying that to get existing hardware working they have to wait till July AND OpenBSD users will have to update their existing firmware? What sort of response is this??? What's wrong with providing documentation for the existing hardware?
Which leads me to an interesting point. You say that "Everyone on here expects companies to spend millions in development and bend over backwards for their own purposes.", which is correct. If companies spend millions in development, they spend it because they want their customers and potential customers to get the most benefit from their products, and thus keep buying from them. That a company would spend millions on development and then drag the chain on documentation is, to put it frankly, pathetic and more than a little stupid.
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Interesting)
- "write drivers for the niche 5% MacOS X or 5% other *nix market?
What you fail to take into account is that Adaptec RAID 5 controllers are a niche market meant for either hardcore users who need a RAID 5 array for storage, or for servers. To take an entire segment out of that niche and say "We don't want this business" is ludicrous.Last time I checked, OpenBSD is a decent sized segment of the server "niche market." Yes, it is a niche within a niche, but the PR implications of NOT providing documentation is huge, thanks to Slashdot.
This is what the topic is about -- the documentation requested is required to hotswap a failed drive, then rebuilt the array without needing to go into the BIOS and reboot. From what I read, other operating systems (ie: Windows) drivers have the ability to rebuilt the array without a reboot -- this is a huge feature required for many corporate and enterprise class servers.
I choose to vote for Open Source friendly companies with my dollars, and the influence I have on the dollars that my company will spend.
As I'm sure other people have rebutted, all they want is documentation -- Adaptec has a choice, they can choose either paying some $50 shipping and printing out a box of papers, or potentially a huge PR smear that would convince more than a few people to not buy their products.
End rant.
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:3, Interesting)
I read Doug's response. What I SAW was Adaptec saying we'll be releasing everything together in 4 months. That is when the company is going to be ready to release an SDK, and documentation will be part of that release.
The OpenBSD guys response was "Can't you read! I want documentation N
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:3, Interesting)
So it's not unreasonable for OpenBSD or any other OS to expect reasonable documentation on how to get it running within reasonable timeframe.
To give you an example, at our company we have been running FreeBSD for 5 years using the asr driver running Adaptec RAID 3210S (3200S before 3210S was out). As you may have noticed
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:3, Informative)
OK, that's fine. So customers running BSD will not purchase Adaptec RAID hardware until late-2006. Any earlier, and they'd run into problems with it being unsupported by their OS vendor.
"The OpenBSD guys response was "Can't you read! I want documentation NOW or I'm going to take my OS
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like the OBSD guys said, "the drivers we've reverse-engineered aren't very stable, and we want more documentation so that we can make them stable for our existing users (of your hardware). If you won't give us that information, or persist in pretending to misunderstand what we want, then we will be unable to produce stable drivers for your hardware and we will refuse to release a driver with the instabilities we know of. We're in a hurry because our main coding time is coming up soon, and we've been asking for this for a while."
There is nothing that requires Adaptec to provide the necessary documentation. Nor is there anything which requires the BSD guys to release a driver that they know is buggy.
What I still don't understand is *why* Adaptec persist in refusing to allow a large, talented, motivated group of programmers to write a good driver for their hardware FOR FREE. If xBSD gets a working driver, then the other BSDs, Linux, etc. won't be far behind. Adaptec needs the server market, Unices are strong in the server market, more Unix drivers for Adaptec hardware means more people buying Adaptec hardware to run on free OS's, everybody wins! Except that Adaptec (apparently) won't play nice. How is that Theo de Raadt's fault?
Of course, I'm not within the loop at Adaptec, and so I don't know why they won't release documentation when it's needed. Perhaps they have some blindingly brilliant reasons why they don't want to release the information necessary to write fully functional drivers. What I do know is that it can't be seen from the outside, looking in.
In any case, I've had my share of trouble with Adaptec RAID cards under Windows. I probably wouldn't buy another one anyway.
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a shame that you so grossly misrepresent the position of the OpenBSD people, and try to spin your ex-employer's position in a more positive light.
The OpenBSD people have a deadline on the near horizon, and they wanted to be able to include a non-buggy version of the driver in that release. They have been asking Adaptec for help for months, but to no avail. Then, when the OpenBSD peop
Re:Why just documentation? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real clue to Adaptec's attitude (from the
Re:Why just OpenBSD? (Score:4, Insightful)
As deservedly highly-rated as both your post and the grandparent posts are, the sentiments expressed are not the norm. There are many Slashdot sycophants who have championed buying nVidia video cards and dependence on nVidia to release the latest version of their binary-only video software.
Re:Why just OpenBSD? (Score:2)
He'd say, "no," and the drivers wouldn't be used by the kernel.
Re:Why just OpenBSD? (Score:2)
If you don't buy what isn't supported and don't support what isn't documented then you have no problems.
Besides the nVidia stuff is X, not Linux.
Re:Why just OpenBSD? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not anymore. NVidia has several chipsets (like the NIC used in nforce)) that they do not release documentation for, as far as I know.
Re:Why just OpenBSD? (Score:2)
If people were to want to work on it they would still not have the documentation involved to do it properly.
NDA work just makes the problem worse, it gives a half-assed support for something to people so they think it should work and can do little when they find that they are mistaken.
There's an old saying (Score:5, Insightful)
"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." - Napolean
Re:There's an old saying (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:There's an old saying (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There's an old saying (Score:2)
"Yeah, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron."
Quiz: In what Time Team episode did Tony Robinson have to say "baldrick", but said it with a pause so those in the know could smirk?
--Rob
The Battle with OpenSource (Score:4, Interesting)
"I'll not release my documentation because others business can get all of my secrets and my bugged harware."
Re:The Battle with OpenSource (Score:3, Insightful)
Therein lies the fundamental misunderstanding... releasing specs does *NOT* give a competitor an advantage. What good does it do LSI to know that Adaptec's registers are little-endian? Or that tickling bit 4 of accumulator B will trigger an array rebuild? Documents only lay out the capabilities of a product, but do nothing to explain or detail the underlying silicon.
I wonder how this will affect Adaptec? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wonder how this will affect Adaptec? (Score:5, Insightful)
The one advantage it does have is security, which is vital for running large scale servers. These servers have reliabilty as a high priority, so RAID is the norm.
Re:I wonder how this will affect Adaptec? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd rather use software RAID now. Closed source management tools and unreliable software, hardware and firmware are not things I want anywhere fucking near my data storage subsystems.
Re:I wonder how this will affect Adaptec? (Score:2)
Even if I'm using hardware on Windows - I make sure that support is available with Linux and, better yet, FreeBSD.
It keeps you out of driver hell.
You know what I'm talking about - like sound-cards with 24meg drivers because the chips on the card don't have enough ommph to do their job without relying on the CPU. Or shitty WinModems that crap out on any line noise because they don't have a real DSP on them
Simple solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple solution... (Score:2, Informative)
This is how we are supposed to "vote with our money" as "consumers". Yes, I know, it'll never have any effect anyway, but that still dont make it a troll.
Just a note (Score:5, Informative)
I have not been using OpenBSD sice 1999, but hardware support was never its strong point... though what it supported was,like all the BSD's, supported extremely well.
It's a good call, in spirit of BSD. Scott's drivers are exellent and they just need to port those.
Re:Just a note (Score:5, Informative)
The management utility in the FreeBSD ports tree is binary-only. OpenBSD refuse to accept binary only crap, which is why they want this documentation.
Re:Just a note (Score:3, Insightful)
The OpenBSD people won't include something closed in their system, but if you want to close up a copy of OpenBSD and sell it yourself it is fine. You can still use binary drivers and you will be responsible for those drivers, so when someone asks why your Adaptec AAC RAID is broken and doesn't allow fo
OpenBSD confirms it... (Score:5, Funny)
Freedom is great! (Score:2, Insightful)
The amazing thing about this whole afair is that Adaptec itself is also a leashed and cuffed company. But after some thinking I realized Nvidia is just such a company. Even if they wanted to release the _specifications_ of their hardware they couldn't.
All in all this forces people to stick to one OS. That's why it is so
this is a good solution (Score:5, Insightful)
People say that Theo should stop being so annoying, but the only way shareholders find out is when it gets massively publicised like this.
It worked for the 802.11 drivers. It's worth a shot here.
Re:this is a good solution (Score:2)
Re:this is a good solution (Score:2)
We can all agree with his goals (I do), but he can be an asshole sometimes.
Probably software raid (Score:5, Interesting)
reminds me of Promise (Score:5, Informative)
Reminds me of Promise's definition of "Linux support" for a card I bought.
In the case of the SX-150 SATA raid card (which has a hardware XOR engine and whatnot), that meant "we have binary drivers for distributions which are several years old".
There is some source. Well, it's a 'wrapped' binary driver, and it's only available from "some guy" in Germany who begged Promise support long enough they gave it to him. You a)cannot compile it into the kernel b)cannot compile it for 2.6 because it simply isn't compatible. I sent numerous emails to Promise asking when a 2.6 driver would be available or if there was any updated source code. None were ever answered.
Same story with the tools- unless you're running Redhat 9.0 or some ancient version of Suse, forget ANY on-line monitoring.
Not that the customers are much better- one page I found about the card suggested that "software raid is faster anyway", which is an absurd proposition by itself. Regardless, why would you spend $100-200 more on a hardware-raid card complete with cache memory, and then just use the 2.6 SATA driver which only drives the SATA interfaces?
From what I understand, 3ware has better support for Linux, but that means I have to migrate a large amount of data off the old array..
Re:reminds me of Promise (Score:5, Informative)
Re:reminds me of Promise (Score:2)
Hey, next time, read my full post:
"Regardless, why would you spend $100-200 more on a hardware-raid card complete with cache memory, and then just use the 2.6 SATA driver which only drives the SATA interface
Re:reminds me of Promise (Score:2)
I have no idea why you would spend $100-$200 more on a hardware raid card for linux without knowing beforehand if it would work. My experience is that very, very few hardware raid solutions are well supported on linux.
Re:reminds me of Promise (Score:3, Informative)
I had similar troubles with my Promise Fasttrack 100 TX2, which afaik is just a standard ATA disk controller with the capability to label drives as being part of certain arrays. The raid stuff is then done in software.
Anyway, Linux support for this has been patchy. There was a native driver in 2.4 for some time, which worked on-and-off. There was also a source-wrapped binary driver, available from the Promise site, which worked occasionally under 2.4, but is incompatible with 2.6. I assume Promise have no
Use IBM RAID (Score:2, Insightful)
So this hurts Adaptec how? (Score:2)
Re:So this hurts Adaptec how? (Score:2)
(note that that is different than firmware images, which OpenBSD will accept if they are allowed to include them in the base system)
Nothing ever changes at Adaptec (Score:5, Interesting)
Substitute "They" for "We" in that sentence and it could have been me speaking, when I was working at Adaptec and trying to release an in-house version of the starfire (a.k.a. "Duralan" ethernet MAC) driver. I hit that same brick wall over and over again while tying to get some chip specs and a linux driver released. Somehow, in their minds, "support" is translated into not releasing specs and drivers. Releasing such information, in contrast, is a failure to support customers. This wierd Orwellian doublethink seems to pervade the thinking of everyone connected with supporting Linux and other free OS's at Adaptec.
It's so amazing to see that nothing has changed at Adaptec in the last 7 years. My own driver episode was "resolved" (unsatisfactorily, for me) by Donald Becker agreeing to sign an NDA for the chip specs. Not to second guess Donald, but my thinking at the time was, "this just postpones the problem. Maybe it would be better just to boycott these imbeciles."
Not to close on a sour note, I should say that Adaptec was a great place to work in many ways, and I always viewed their attitude toward free software as an aberration. I still tend to do so, and perhaps that's wishful thinking on my part.
Threshold of complexity (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the small and medium end raid market now. Theres not many players, Adaptec,promise,3ware and a bunch that adaptec bought up. Adaptec gains nothing by opening up itself to a point by point comparison with lesser competitors. Their name recognition is carrying them much the way IBM's used to. Further if the hardware is bugged and tricky and adaptec knew about it then they open themselves up to liability.
Their reasons are obvious keep the barriers high and keept those that can't climb them out.
At least they are consistent (Score:2, Interesting)
LSI (Score:4, Interesting)
(OK, so not directly related to Adaptec - but it seems to be a reasonable place to give their competitor a pat on the back!).
theo rocks (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh well
interesting if not down right funny thread: (Score:5, Interesting)
* Subject: Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
* From: Bob Beck
* Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:56:41 -0700
* Cc: Theo de Raadt , Sean Hafeez , misc@openbsd.org, Scott Long , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
* In-reply-to:
* Mail-followup-to: Charles Swiger , Theo de Raadt , Sean Hafeez , misc@openbsd.org, Scott Long , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
* References:
* User-agent: Mutt/1.5.6i
>
> sort of ultimatum is a childish and self-destructive action. I hope
> the other OpenBSD committers veto any such action as being
> counterproductive and harmful to your users.
Horsecookies. What was done was remove AAC support from GENERIC,
because users know what is in GENERIC is supposed to be stable and a
good candidate for use. I've got AAC's. They aren't at the moment.
they die, and you can't do anything with the raid management without
rebooting, and Adaptec has shown no signs of releasing documentation
so that situation can be corrected.
Sure, there's a "free" driver, and a non-free management interface,
so it's only half a driver. Pretending to have a production system
using a raid card that with no supportable management interface so you
have to reboot to fix anything is like buying birth control pills in
packs of 20. Pretty soon you're going to take a good fucking on a day
you really can't afford it. Period.
As such AAC isnt' any more broken than it ever was. OpenBSD
just chooses not to encourage users to purchase a non-supportable
card by including support for it in the GENERIC kernel. Are you
saying it's more honest to leave unstable and incomplete support in
there? People who wish to use it anyway can always compile it in.
> Otherwise, you're likely to discover that most people choose to run an
> OS which works with the hardware they have, rather than sticking with
> OpenBSD.
Or choose to replace the hardware that isn't supportable by the
OS they want to run. Thank you LSI and Dell. LSI cards seem to work
fine.
-Bob
emphasis added by poster
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Man, this is really embarassing for Adaptec (Score:2, Insightful)
I really don't get this... it's win/win for adaptec unless they have something huge to hide. OpenBSD has been around for a while and has a good reputation for getting stuff done. If they would just forward Theo and his buddies to some guy on the back end of things, they'd generate some sales and also make the OpenBSD people shut up for a while.
Wierdest thing is you KNOW the guy they'r
Slightly FUD (Score:4, Informative)
What the Adaptec guy actually said was:Using the word "buggy" like it was used in the Slashdot front page article implies that the cards are flaky and that non-Adaptec cards aren't (as) buggy. This isn't outright stated, but similarly saying something like "I don't use Microsoft Office because it is buggy" tends to leave the listener with the impression that other office suites are less buggy, even though that isn't stated outright.
The Adaptec employee stated only what we already know--that different revisions of firmware have different bugs (in ALL products that use firmware, not just Adaptec RAID adapters), and that they must be worked around. If different revisions of firmware didn't have bugs, then different revisions of firmware wouldn't exist--the first one would have worked fine (aside from occasional feature additions and tweaks).
However, to the original poster's credit, Adaptec RAID cards really do suck, and they really are buggy (not to mention slow, especially in RAID 5, compared to almost every other brand--and Adaptec's entire SCSI line is pretty consistant in that regard), but that is beside the point. Slashdot shouldn't participate in the same FUD that we so often criticize--just let the facts speak for themselves, and leave the interpretation up to the reader.
Adaptec sucks (Score:2)
I once found the Linux Adaptec driver maintainer's site. I was appalled to see a matrix of mostly unique drivers for combinations of Linxu kernels and Adaptec HBA models. I got the impression that every time Adaptec designs a new HBA they ignore everything they've done before.
Contrast that with Symbios SCSI HBAs (now LSI Logic). There has always been just one driver for all the Symbios HBAs that use a given SCSI chip, and more recently I think I've seen some integration into a driver that covers multip
rule of thumb (Score:5, Insightful)
As a rule of thumb, if you are buying a piece of hardware, buy one for which known, good, independently-developed open source drivers exist. The existence of such drivers is a good indication that the hardware is well-documented, probably decently designed, and that it probably does what it is advertised as doing. And that's a good rule of thumb even if you are buying the hardware that you only intend to use with closed-source operating systems.
Adaptec Losing It. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I have a number of Adaptec's ATA Raid Cards (ATA RAID 2400A), for the longest time they only supported RedHat 7.0. Now that Fedora is somewhat the premiere platform for me (three releases later), they are finally supporting Redhat 9.0.
With the the latest Fedora, there is no way to see if the raid array has a failed drive. So I instead use the card as a quad ATA controller, using software RAID. Guess if I'd buy another Adaptec piece of hardware???
Just a few thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
First, Theo and the other developers, although making good points, are being quite rude to employees. I think that its important for them to push this issue, but I think they are handling it immaturaly. Flaming Adaptec (ex-)employees is not a good move, even if Scott did make a post on OSNews -- attack the companies economic base through a boycott instead.
Secondly, I think that if Theo and the gang started an organized boycott of Adaptec raid controllers in a professional manner, then got those people to sign a petition, write to Adaptec, and such along with getting a pretty accurate count of how many of Adaptec's raid controllers have been purchased by those boycotting Adaptec, they might be able to show themselves to be consisting of a large enough market to cause a dent in Adaptec's profits. Not only OpenBSD, but also FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Linux users who feel that its important to use open source drivers. This may require a bit of work, but its the most effective way to get Adaptec's attention. I mean, how many open-source Unix servers are using their raid cards? How many of those users, admins, etc. realize the importance of an open source driver so it can be maintained by the community, since most companies have been slow (to say the least) to update their binary drivers? Not to mention, the flexibility involved with porting it to different Open-source Unix OS's and using it with different software configurations and versions?
Thirdly, some people are arguing that that Adaptec will release an SDK in 4 months, but given the history of the Adaptec drivers and drivers by other companies, that would probably involve using a binary driver... which wouldn't help.
I think that if the open source OS's are going be taken seriously by vendors, then they need to act in a professional manner and show their economic strength through well-crafted reports and well-organized efforts.
I support the work of Theo and the other OpenBSD developers -- I believe they are right, but I think the open source community has to join together for a common cause and be professional about such things.
If we, as a community, can make this happen in a professional manner, and win, then maybe, just maybe, we can extend this to other vendors. If we can't pull together, then we're fighting a losing battle against closed source OS's such as Windows and venders such as Adaptec, and we might as well give up now.
We can do this, I know we can. But, we have to do it correctly. So, come on folks, act professional, realize what's at stake, and organize. Think of the visibility the grass roots democratic groups got when they organized and acted like a unified front -- they didn't win the election, but that was surely noticed.
Re:Just a few thoughts (Score:3, Interesting)
I think if you go back and check the archives you'll find that the great majority of the four-letter words are not coming from the OpenBSD group. Ref: that "post on OSNews [osnews.com]".
Re:Just a few thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm posting this on my Windows XP Home notebook. I tried at least 5 Free OSs, but I couldn't find a kernel that could control the fan and do suspend/resume reliably.
Over the last decade, the Free OSs have done surprisingly well at supporting hardware. But the last ten years have not yielded (to my knowledge) a hardware RAID card that can be fully-managed without closed binaries.
Lately it's been Theo and OpenBSD who've gotten down-
Re:How many people... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How many people... (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How many people... (Score:3, Interesting)
All free OSes combined don't really add up to that much market share for many of these hardware devices. The fact is we don't have enough pull to demand most of the time (RAID controllers might be an exception).
Re: (Score:2)
Different strategy... (Score:2)
One is to whine and complain, the other it to move forward with what you do have, making your OS so big it is something you simply can't ignore. In short, talk is cheap. Show them a market share and lost revenue they aren't getting (and no, something in the zero
Re:How many people... (Score:5, Informative)
It did not start with BSD4.4-lite, go to 386BSD, move to NetBSD, then OpenBSD, then DragonFlyBSD and then FreeBSD. Each are their own system which split at one time or another from the same tree.
All four of those systems are maintained today and therefore it is not like Windows 9x complaining about hardware support. Windows does not maintain new versions of Windows 95.
OpenBSD is the extremely secure and extremely open of the BSDs and Unix-likes. OpenBSD refuses to have anything that isn't as Free and Open as their goals describe into their system. Linux and FreeBSD are more into the functionality over ideals idea. NetBSD I cannot speak for though as I don't really follow them.
Re:How many people... (Score:4, Interesting)
Theo is a belligerent prick so he gets noticed more than the others, but every open source OS has identical problems with driver support. Why do you think Theo got that award when he and Stallman don't exactly see eye-to-eye?
Re:How many people... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How many people... (Score:2)
In this case it's a good thing. Sometimes it's not.
Me (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't used OpenBSD in a few years and was really impressed with their rewrite of packet filter. You linux folks should check it out.
Re:Tried e-mailing the guy.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tried e-mailing the guy.... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're not wrong. Is it just me, or does this de Raadt character get 'snippy' each and every time the world doesn't roll over and play the game how he wants them to?
An important point in a geek's career is the time when s/he recognises that if s/he's gonna get any further in said career, they're gonna have to maintain a business-benefiting attitude and act in business-benefiting ways else businesses won't employ you any more. Sheer guru-like skill only carries you so far, and then you've gotta play nice with others or others won't play with you anymore.
Some geeks come to that realisation early in their careers. I try to tell my geek.students that before they graduate. Some geeks never ever wake up, and they grow old on low incomes angry at the world.
de Raadt does some wonderful things, sure, but there's always this persistent undertone of a bad attitude waiting to sneak out and throw his weight around. Public nastygrams and "screw you, we'll ship with even less support for your product than we did before" dummy spits constitute "does not play nice with others" in my book.
Trouble is, geeks carry no weight in business, and the businessfolks have all the money. It's up to us to decide if we want some of that money or not.
Re:Tried e-mailing the guy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tried e-mailing the guy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
> a very successful busines
Not to be a pedantic, but I think the Gates you're looking for is William Gates III. Wm Gates Jr is his lawyer father, who probably is as responsible for the success of MSFT as his son...
By the way, yes Theo can be a bit of a prick, but he's going after putting out simply the best version of BSD Unix around. It's why I've bought every release since the mid-2.x...
Re:Tried e-mailing the guy.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Theo works full-time on the OpenBSD project. He needs to pay the rent / mortgage sure, but he isn't in this for the money.
While he may be 'grating' at times he does stick to his principles (much like RMS).
Re:Tried e-mailing the guy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Jeez, he just wants documentation. Why is this such a problem for people to understand? It's not about how much money he could be making if he had a better set of kneepads, or if he let Adaptec shine him on because that's the way "the game" is played. It's about being able to do what he wants with the hardware he (or the other users of OpenBSD) use. It costs nothing or next-to-nothing for Adaptec to provide the same documentation that their own developers use, yet apparently Adaptec doesn't wants to keep this secret because it might be embarrassing.
Perhaps you think it's a good idea to keep this information secret because the embarrassing aspects of the docs might get in the way of some of Adaptec's employees' desire to play the game and exercise their ability to go for "some of that money". Or perhaps not; maybe there's another reason not to allow serious and qualified developers access to existing documentation. Theo just wants to write software that people will use and will use as a reason to purchase more Adaptec products. I'm shocked that you would actually teach students that this is a bad idea.
Then again, having a problem with the way someone conducts themselves is no reason to disregard their innocuous requests. The money is not always right.
Re:Tried e-mailing the guy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not wrong. Is it just me, or does this de Raadt character get 'snippy' each and every time the world doesn't roll over and play the game how he wants them to?
There's quite some distance between demanding immediate obedience and 4 months of delays and excuses. Most businessmen don't stand for that either (or they go out of business).
An important point in a geek's career is the time when s/he recognises that if s/he's gonna get any further in said career, they're gonna have to maintain a business-benefiting attitude and act in business-benefiting ways else businesses won't employ you any more.
'Business benefiting attitude' does not mean sycophant or pushover. It means acting in the best interests of a company, sometimes whether they like it or not. Fact is, a lot of assholes succeed in business, mostly because they know how, to whom, and when to be assholes. A trained asshole is a powerful weapon.
Trouble is, geeks carry no weight in business, and the businessfolks have all the money. It's up to us to decide if we want some of that money or not.
Bullshit. How many CEOs of the Fortune 500 are MBAs and how many are technical people that learned business? You're confusing 'engineer' with 'asocial dweeb who lives in his parents' basement'.
Re:Tried e-mailing the guy.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but that doesnt mean he's always wrong. Its probably best to judge him on what he's saying *at the moment*. Being argumentative is not nesseserily a bad thing, although he does put his foot in it more than is really a good idea
Thats not really true. I'm a geek and i have quite a lot of say in technical decisions. Our CTO is a geek also. I do not work for a technical company. I work for a publishing company.
If any company hires a technically minded person and then wont listen to his or her advice, they they they are wasting that person.
Would you hire an accountant and then ignore their advice about financial matters? if so, please tell me the company you are involved with so I can avoid accidentally getting hired there.
Any company that ignores the advice of its geeks is wasting a valuable resource. The companies I have worked for realise this.
That doesnt mean they are always right, however moderating conflicting advice is part of being a manager.
Re:Tried e-mailing the guy.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How many people... (Score:4, Informative)
The only exception is firmware binary blobs (which all OSes need, as it is not practical to create open source replacements), they are tolerated if they are released under a license that allows OpenBSD to distribute them.
That's similar to what Linuxes like Debian demand, and that's a lot more than Linuxes like Red Hat and Suse demand.
Re:just buy a mac :-) (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Theo de Raadt (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, it's annoying that we have to wait four months, but at least they've promised something. - Seems they were saying much the same four months ago.
Frankly, I think Theo is being impatient and hotheaded. - He is indeed.
Stick a carrot infront of you, just out of reach, and slap y
Re:Bad mod, bad! (Score:3, Insightful)