>>>>> "wm" == Will Murnane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
wm> I'd rather have a working closed blob than a driver that is
wm> Free Software for a device that is faulty. Ideals are very
wm> nice, but broken hardware isn't.
except,
1. part of the reason the closed Solaris drivers are (also) broken,
IMHO, is that they're closed, so highly-invested competent people
can't fix them if they happen to be on the wrong side of the wall.
2. Linux has open drivers for the Marvell chip that work better than
Sun's closed driver, so there's an existence proof that (a) you
can have both freedom and working drivers. It's a false
trade-off, like ``civic freedom vs. security.'' And (b) the
appologist's claim ``we can only make half-working broken drivers,
fine for Linux but nothing up to our high standards <cough!>,
unless we sign an NDA'' is bunk. The people who refused to sign(*)
now have a better driver, not a worse one.
that's why I suggest running solaris as a domU of Linux may be the
best plan until the SATA stack is no longer broken, or at least
not broken on some limited subset of hardware, like for example
the hardware that Sun sells.
3. The position is incredibly short-sighted. Imagine the quality of
driver we'd have right now if _everyone_ refused to sign that
damned paper, not just the Linux people. We would have a better
driver. It would be open, too, but open or not it would be
better.
4. there are missing features like NCQ, hotplug, port-multiplier
support, all highly relevant to ZFS, for which we will have to
wait longer because we've accepted closed drivers.
5. The Sil 3124 chip works fine on Linux. I have not tried the 3114,
but at least on Linux it is part of libata, their SATA framework,
not supported in remedial PATA mode, so it's at least more of a
first-class driver in Linux than in Solaris, if not simply a
better one.
But to be honest I don't wish for a driver for every chip---I'm
not trying to ``convert'' machines, I buy them specifically for
the task. I just want an open driver that works well for some
fairly-priced card I can actually buy. I'm willing to fight the
OEM problem:
http://www.openbsd.org/papers/brhard2007/mgp00022.html
by purchasing systems in a complicated way, with lots of add-in
cards, at higher cost. I will buy whatever card I'm told. But so
far the track record is not good. I still have one of those bunk
Supermicro Marvell cards sitting on the shelf.
so this is a really big gap: On Linux I get an open driver that
works well for almost any chip, in the stable branch of
RedHat/CentOS, and I get the source code for the exact same stable
supported version I'm using not just source for the development
version. And many of the drivers support advanced features: NCQ,
hotplug, PMP, smartctl not panicing the system.
On Solaris there is one closed driver (LSI) and one open driver
(AHCI) that works sort-of well but not as well as Linux, and
doesn't support advanced features. The open driver isn't
obtainable as an add-on card and doesn't support port multipliers,
so your port density is really limited. The closed driver is an
expensive card (largely because of the _cables_?!), and
brand-new/unproven/not-even-available-in-Sol10.
If there _is_ an open vs. closed trade-off, the track record so
far suggests a different trade-off than what you suggest: you can
have closed drivers if you really want them, but they'll be more
broken than the open ones.
---
(*) The Linux Marvell driver does come with source, but this
presentation:
http://www.openbsd.org/papers/opencon06-drivers/mgp00025.html
says some Linux guys sign NDA's to get documentation they use to
write GPL drivers. not sure how they can publish source code
without ``disclosing'', but the OpenBSD people are saying (1) code
is not a substitute for documentation, (2) craven Linux developers
are lowering the bar and making open documentation for writing
openbsd drivers unobtainable.
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