[ogb-discuss] [driver-discuss] Project proposal - Integration

[Alan DuBoff]

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007, David Gwynne wrote:

> On 22/12/2007, at 5:51 PM, Alan DuBoff wrote:
>>
>> If there is something specific you would like to know, I can try to
>> get some information for you, it is my manager that is responsible
>> for the LSI relationship.
>
> Has OpenSolaris inherited Suns relationship with LSI?

I can tell you what I know and don't know, don't shoot me I'm just the 
messenger...(as they say;-).

I'm not sure I would say that OpenSolaris is inheriting Sun's 
relationship, because I don't know the details of their relationship. Sun 
has been working with several vendors to open source their drivers, and 
Intel for instance has taken proprietary drivers such as the e1000g and 
moved it into OpenSolaris, so the driver moved recentely from the closed 
binaries to it's rightful home in uts.

I am not sure if the LSI driver will be open sourced, and my gut tells me 
that it will not, but that is something I would need to check on. I 
*suspect* that the driver is not open, since it's been playing ping-pong 
between the lawyers for some time, and normally the open source drivers 
don't take so long, it's typically a matter of getting the contributer 
agreement signed.

I'm not clear on the chipsets, but from my a recent staff meeting I see 
the LSI 1078 chipset as being in a ping-pong game between both Sun's and 
LSI lawyers, but it would appear that it's nearing closure.

What I am not clear on and will be up front with you, is that I don't now 
know if you have a different chipset than the 1078, and the megasas driver 
includes multiple chipsets, so my understanding is that it consolidates 
more than one chipset into the driver possibly. I'm not absolutely clear 
on that though.

However, I would like to point out that if this point is true, it will be 
almost impossible to get a driver cleared with partial support of this 
driver, in the case that it doesn't support all the devices that the 
megasas driver is being developed to support.

Here's a page I googled for, on LSI which talks some about MegaRAID 
SAS/SATA. There are various documents on this page, not sure if it will 
help or confuse the issue.

http://www.lsi.com/storage_home/products_home/internal_raid/megaraid_sas/megaraid_sas_8888elp/index.html

Lastly I would like to point out again that Sun has had relationships 
ongoing with many of the vendors that pre-date OpenSolaris. Some of that 
is business as usual, IOW, things haven't changed much. In other cases 
things have changed alot, ala Intel. Even if LSI does open source this 
megasas driver, I don't think that means that Sun is not working with them 
on other proprietary work, since Sun does use LSI chipsets in the systems 
they ship, AFAIK. But the trend, and more so Sun's intentions, are to open 
up as much as they can, and has been encouraging their IHV/OEM partners to 
do the same. In general it seems the response is pretty positive from most 
vendors, I just do not know where we stand with LSI.

I'll try to get more details, but most everyone (including my manager who 
is responsible for the LSI relationship) is on break and off until Jan. 7, 
2008.

--

Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 IHV/OEM Group