Theo de Raadt wrote:
I thought my mail was clear enough.
Not necessarily. This thread was originally about the Hifn 7956 whereas
my interest is in the 7955. You stated that about a year ago Hifn
policies changed and that they decided they would no longer provide
documentation. I know the 7955 and the 7956 come from the same product
line, but since you did not address the 7955 specifically there was an
outside chance that OpenBSD had received full documentation for the 7955
before this Hifn policy change, but then suffered for documentation on
the 7956. Thus my request for clarification.
I suppose that your message would be clear to a developer familiar with
the hardware. I do not know the differences between these two parts. Is
the 7956 merely a higher clocked part, or does it differ in
implementation from the 7955? Since they are part of the same product
line it would logically follow that they were implemented identically.
However, how many companies have different implementations across the
same part number, let alone product lines? I am merely covering all the
possibilities left open by your message.
I suppose it is safe to assume by your reply that the two parts utilize
the same implementation but that the 7956 is a higher clock than the
7955. In other words, the people in the 7955 message thread are fscked
as well.
In any case, I guess it is time to send Hifn an email and let them know
that they are losing future sales as a result of this change in policy.
I suggest that other owners of Hifn products follow suit. I am also
going to send a message to Soekris expressing my displeasure at the fact
that their product sales page for the vpn1411 lists it as fully
supported by OpenBSD when that is obviously not the case. As a Hifn
technology implementer I would hope that Soekris would also pass their
concern about this documentation issue back up the chain to Hifn.
On that note, does anyone in the project have an email address or two
for Hifn? Specifically an address for someone who would have maximum
impact on the policy decision making process.
Breeno
