More on OpenBSD 3.7 Release

putko writes "As previously reported, OpenBSD 3.7 is released. Here's some interviews with the people behind the release about the new features, including information about which companies are complying with requests for documentation and permission to freely distribute required firmware, and which are not. Ralink Tech and Realtek 'GOOD,'Intel 'BAD.' The next time I build/buy a wireless product, I'll want Realtek or Ralink Tech inside -- because getting software to work with it will be easier. Ralink Tech and Realtek are Taiwanese, by the way."

Comments

Firmwares and drivers

[puiahappy]

Have any of you noticed the the hardware producers are standing in the way of open source software ? If you intend to install a Linux BSD or SunOS, drivers for the videocard`s, LAN card`s, TV Tuners, digital camera`s are very hard to find. On the driver CD suplied by the vendor you will find only drivers for Windows. So the point of this news should be not who are able to distribute the firmwares then why are they not suplied by the vendor on the install CD and why can`t they be included in the OS.

Re:Firmwares and drivers

[TheLetterPsy]

Sorry, but since I have no mod points, I have nothing useful to do, and this is Slashdot:

drivers for the video card's, LAN card's, TV Tuners, digital camera's

Why does your plural form of the words 'driver' and 'Tuners' just add an 's', while your plural form of the words 'card', 'videocard' and 'camera' require the apostrophe?

You got 'news' and 'firmwares' right. What's (that is a contraction, one of the times when you _do_ use apostrophe-s) the thinking there? If you're not going to make the effort to be correct, at least be consistent!!

Or maybe you meant (rough translation):

drivers for the TV Tuner of the videocard and LAN card . . . no it's (contraction again) just too messed up to translate.

I'll give up soon enough.

Packages BAD

[mnmn]

All the packages in OpenBSD 3.7 packages directory are bad. They all expect libraries of previous releases, makes me think they were simply copied from 3.6, and older in a few cases. I had to make links to libc.so.39 as libc.so.38, libc.so.37 and libc.so.36 to make various apps work, same for ssl, crypt, libstdc++ and a bunch of other libs.

At least the core OpenBSD 3.7 is complete and I imagine the packages will be brought up to date in time. Till then, compile your own or use ports.

Re:Intel

[4b696e67]

I don't know how true this is, but there is another reason that vendors may not release hardware info.

I have heard that a lot of hardware is pretty bad and is mostly fixed with software hacks in the driver. Companies may be not want people to know how broken some of their products are.

Re:Sigh

[chrysalis]

I can't agree more with you. What would it cost to Dell to supply hardware for the OpenBSD CVS server? Nothing.

A few month ago, I was looking for Opteron-based server racks. I saw on the Transtec home page a press release like "Transtec gave hardware to KDE developpers".
I thought "hey, these guys are cool". And because of that, the company I'm working for ordered an Opteron server (2500 L) at Transtec. And since the server was performing well, we ordered for $ 300,000 of similar servers afterwards.

Maybe we would have bought the server at Transtec's without this little press release, who knows. But maybe not. It was the little thing that made me immediately think that Transtec was a nice company.

So the KDE fundation gets hardware, the vendor gets free ad and end users think the vendor is nice. Everyone wins.

Another thing is that if vendors help free operating systems by giving hardware, these operating systems will probably be fully compatible with that hardware. Which means that end-users will buy the hardware because they know that OpenBSD/Linux/DragonFlyBSD/etc. will probably work on it. And it does because the vendor helped these projects at the first place, and for these vendors, giving a few servers is cheap. It can only be a win for them.