On Sat, 28 Aug 2004, Nikhil Joshi wrote: > not have been an issue in the first place. Somewhere on the net I read > that FreeBSD can theoretically support such binary drivers. I'll just > check that out. Also it mentioned that the design decision by Linux > community was deliberate so as to force the manufacturers to release their > source code. I don't know if it's true but this comment came from a > FreeBSD kernel developer I guess.
Here's the link: http://people.freebsd.org/~murray/bsd_flier.html It's rather old comparison between FreeBSD,Linux, and 2K. Here is the excerpt I was talking about : The FreeBSD bootloader can load binary drivers at boot-time. This allows third-party driver manufacturers to distribute binary-only driver modules that can be loaded into any FreeBSD system. Due to the open-source nature of FreeBSD, it is very easy to develop device drivers for new hardware. Unfortunately, most device-manufacturers will only release binaries for Microsoft operating systems. This means that it can take several months after a hardware device has hit the market until a device driver is available. The Linux community intentionally makes it difficult for hardware manufacturers to release binary-only drivers. This is meant to encourage hardware manufacturers to develop open-source device drivers. Unfortunately most vendors have been unwilling to release the source for their drivers so it is very difficult for Linux users to use vendor supplied drivers at all. Microsoft has excellent relationships with hardware vendors. There are often conflicts when using a device driver on different versions of Microsoft Windows, but overall Windows users have excellent access to third party device drivers. -- If you care, you just get disappointed all the time. If you don't care nothing matters so you are never upset. -- Calvin -- http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
