[osol-mktg] RE: [osol-discuss] Solaris on Intel's Classmate PC?

[Kaiwai Gardiner]

On 31/03/07, Shawn Walker <binarycrusader at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 31/03/07, Kaiwai Gardiner <kaiwai.gardiner at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 31/03/07, Shawn Walker <binarycrusader at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 30/03/07, Kaiwai Gardiner <kaiwai.gardiner at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Yes, I can understand the chicken and the egg scenario, however, one
> has
> > to
> > > > look at this; I went down the road today, window shopping, every
> laptop
> > I
> > > > had a look at down at the computer retailers had the Intel 3945
> A/B/G
> > > > wireless chipset - it is the most popular chipset out there, and
> > normally
> > > > coupled with the e1000g wired NIC - why, considering how wide spread
> the
> > > > device is, is it left completely unsupported given that there is a
> *BSD
> > > > licenced driver for it?
> > >
> > > As mentioned before, just because some random piece of code is
> > > available for a device doesn't mean that there is not a good reason
> > > for a driver to be available. Just as OpenBSD supports many wireless
> > > devices that Linux does not yet support, Solaris does not yet support
> > > many devices as well -- even the "common" ones.
> > >
> > > Just as others have talked about during the "GPL driver debate", if
> > > Solaris were suddenly under the GPLv2, it wouldn't magically make
> > > thousands of drivers available for instant use. Porting drivers is
> > > hard work, and many times its easier to write a new one with well
> > > documented specs than to try to port one that is poorly documented,
> > > friendly license or not.
> >
> >
> > But given how easily that the OpenBSD drivers have been ported to NetBSD
> and
> > FreeBSD, the 'documentation' red herring is an old wives tale.
>
> That was between BSDs. Not to Linux, Solaris, etc. If you have any
> experience porting drivers, you would know it isn't that easy.
> Documentation isn't a red herring either. If the driver "peeks" and
> "pokes" the hardware but doesn't tell you why, you're putting
> yourselves and your customers at danger by trusting that it's doing
> the right thing. You're also going to have a lot of egg on your face
> when you can't explain why something doesn't work and you've committed
> to support the device / driver.



You could always just talk to the author of the driver - its a radical
concept, but you know, it just might work.

Matt
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