Adaptec
Since the original Adaptec guy Doug has blocked his mail, here is the email address of the next person at Adaptec who is involved in this. He has also previously indicated that he would be involved in any decision to provide documentation on the aac RAID management interface. Marty Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] Product Manager Adaptec, Inc. (919) 287-2045 Sorry Marty, but you are only getting comments from your customers. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec
Well, Tomas, The issue is that not all FreeBSD users accept a dependency on binary-only non-free components. Some of them do care. Perhaps not you, but some of them do. I'm sorry, but aside from the chain of emails subject'd Adaptec AAC raid support, what good does this email serve to the freebsd-questions@ mailing lists? The only thing this is doing is perpetuating the cycle of emails which is simply clogging inboxes. No, Tomas, you are incorrect. Yes, thousands of mails are being sent to Adaptec right now, but these mails are coming from their CUSTOMERS. Now if I was a company and I was doing something that pissed off my customers, I would like to know, that's for sure. So your use of the word clogging is incorrect. While some of the discussion may be constructive or useful in the other thread, this is not. No, Tomas, it is entirely useful. It is due to activism actions like this that the documentation for many many chipsets was freed up, for years now, chipsets which I am sure YOU are using on your machine RIGHT NOW. I have been at this for 10 years now, and I am sure you have not. It has been a momentous struggle, and it is not over yet. Try and keep your subjects together so I can archive them more easily and not be forced to read over more. If anything, this sort of email belongs entirely on your misc lists, not the freebsd lists. It belongs whereveer there are people who care about being able to have drivers for their hardware. Otherwise what you are asking for is simply ... that the developer's hands be tied. Flat out, you are wrong. This affects everyone. -Tomas Quintero FreeBSD User On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 15:10:29 -0700, Theo de Raadt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Since the original Adaptec guy Doug has blocked his mail, here is the email address of the next person at Adaptec who is involved in this. He has also previously indicated that he would be involved in any decision to provide documentation on the aac RAID management interface. Marty Turner [EMAIL PROTECTED] Product Manager Adaptec, Inc. (919) 287-2045 Sorry Marty, but you are only getting comments from your customers. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[no subject]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] is another person who can be talked to about this matter. He just sent me a long private mail, none of which really indicates that anything is really happening at Adaptec about our concerns. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Adaptec Information I have received
I have received information from a few sources that indicates that Adaptec does not have documentation on their management interface in-house. They only have a source-code implimentation, for a variety of models. So that is perhaps why they are so slow. That does however speak rather badly. I have not encountered a vendor without even internal documentation for their products in quite a while. Companies you've probably rarely heard of like Zydas, Atmel, Symbol have documentation for their wireless chipsets. The Adaptec SCSI chipset documentation that we dragged out of Adaptec about 8 years ago or so was 12 books. I hope this is not true. Any ex-Adaptec employees want to set the record straight (and please tell the truth..) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
aac support
re: http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=10032offset=15rows=28 See a posting from Scott Long of FreeBSD; --- Thanks for going to a public forum and saying I am full of crap. I really appreciate that. Boy, you sure do want to see all of our projects do well, don't you. Apparently you have zero idea of where we are going. While you are content with shipping binary stuff in your source tree and in your ports tree, we are not. We do not ship binaries. We are not interested in shipping a binary for some CLI. We actually do have the Linux CLI working in emulation, but we will not supply it to our user community. I have cancelled that effort by that developer. We will not supply something to our user community that they cannot fix and improve themselves. We have been talking with Adaptec for 4 months. They have not given us management information. We have been talking to Adaptec for more than a year to get other RAID controller information, as in, how to even get the mailbox stuff fixed. They have not given that to us, either. Noone thought to talk to you. You are, I am sure, under a non-disclosure agreement with Adaptec, and I am sure you would therefore not give us documentation. We are quite used to FreeBSD and Linux people signing NDA's by now. Yesterday on the phone Doug said But we did give OpenBSD documentation, we gave them to Scott Long. Thus, Doug mentioned that *you* had documentation, and thought that was enough. Of course it is not. You do not help us, I told him. That is not how it works. And so it stands -- we still have no documentation. Did I get an offer from you for documentation before you went onto a public site and said I was full of crap? No, I did not. And I expect that now that you have said I am full of crap, we still will get no documentation from you. Right? We are working on a driver-independent raid management framework. One command (perhaps called raidctl(4), we don't know) that should work on any controller from any vendor, which would do management, because the management stuff would be abstracted in a driver-independent way into each driver. Yes this is a difficult project. We have support for AMI almost working. We will support some other product, as well, then we'll see where Adaptec stands. I do a lot of work on OpenBSD. I am sure that you do a lot of work on your stuff in FreeBSD too, so you know what it is to be a very busy busy person. When a vendor ignores me and the efforts of 4 other people trying to get the vendor to listen -- for that long, we have no choice. Yet, you, Scott, you think that you are therefore able to slag us and call us wrong, because YOU are in the loop and we are not? Because you used to WORK at Adaptec, and we did not? That somehow makes us full of crap? I have been watching the mail going to Doug over the last 24 hours. I have been counting controllers mentioned in mails and am now up to over 1,800 Adaptec RAID controllers, with people from very large commercial operations complaining that they have been switching to other controllers (or, having now seen Adaptec's failure in this regard, that they will now actively not buy Adaptec again). Those controllers will not be supported in OpenBSD 3.7 in May. If Adaptec wishes them to be supported in a future release, they had better come and make amends. We are sick of supporting the hardware of vendors who shit on their customers via us. Maybe they can repair this horrid situation enough that we will once again support their controllers by the time OpenBSD 3.8 ships in November. Quite frankly, you don't understand what we are trying to do, and Scott, this is just like the binary only Atheros driver that FreeBSD ships. I like it when all hardware is supported with source code, but just because our methods for getting there are different than yours, Scott, that gives you absolutely no right to go posting such a thing as you did there. Shame on you. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: aac support
To make it easier for people to find Scott Long's post to osnews.com here it is in full: --- Direct comment link From a BSD and former Adaptec person... By Scott (IP: ---.samsco.org) - Posted on 2005-03-19 19:02:37 I don't know if it's better to post this here or onto the openbsd-misc list, but anyways First, Theo is full of crap. I'll say that again: Theo is full of crap. I don't think that he's actually interested in making the AAC cards work. Instead, I think that he's interested in stirring controversy, petty bullying, and silly 'freedom' tripe. I worked at Adaptec for almost five years, until last year. I worked on the FreeBSD (and Linux) AAC driver, and I ported the AAC management CLI to FreeBSD. It's available right now in the FreeBSD ports tree. I also added the proper shims to the driver so that the Linux AACCLI would work under emulation. The fact that I did these things is pretty well known in the BSD community; several other projects have contacted me over the years for help and information about AAC. But during the time the Theo claims that he's cared about AAC, he NEVER ONCE CONTACTED ME! If he had come to me before I left and asked for help on making all of this AAC stuff work on OpenBSD, I would have been happy to help him. Heck, I might have even ported the AACCLI for him on my own. Unfortuntely, Theo chose to ignore resources that would have helped him, and instead chose his normal super-confrontational antics. I have to commend Doug Richardson (one of the nicest men I've ever worked with, BTW) for his very appropriate response. If Adaptec provides an open SDK later this year, good for them, but it certainly is not due to Theo. Theo could have had AACCLI support years ago, but chose not to. I hope he removes the driver from the tree. That would really teach everyone how mature and 'right' he is. Scott Long ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
Theo de Raadt wrote: While I understand what you want Theo lets not remove the support for stuff that currently works. I just spent $349 on a Adaptec RAID card for my home server and if the support is removed I will be very upset. The drive is written. Leave it alone. Let it be up to the end user to pick which card they want to buy. You can not go back and undone support for something you have listed! Sorry. Besides not having raid management, the driver is rather buggy. You know, over the years that I worked for Adaptec and worked on the FreeBSD AAC driver, lots of other people contacted me for help with making their AAC driver work with their OS. Strangely, not once did you or anyone else from OpenBSD contact me. Nate perhaps did. But why should we know that an NDA-singing FreeBSD person is our contact, when over the years, even the people at Adaptec did not tell us so? I would have been happy to help. Heck, I might have even ported the management app (AACCLI, not a GUI, btw) for you like I did for FreeBSD. Barring that, I would have been happy to show you how to do the linux compat shims for the driver so that you could use the Linux AACCLI on OpenBSD. But no, you never contacted me. We do not want a binary tool. Neither our developers, nor our users. We like free software. I think your whole rant here is bunk. You're more concerned about petty bullying and showing everyone how important you are. Your treatment of Doug is downright shameful, and I plan to call him and discuss it Monday morning. If Adaptec puts out an SDK later this year then good for them, but I highly doubt that it will be as a result of your antics. You could have had good AAC support years ago if you had just bothered to look around and use your resources, but instead you chose not to. Delete the driver and screw your users over some more. Scott ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
I'd love to have fully open stuff from all the RAID companies too, but I also want the users of FreeBSD to be able to use the resources that are out there to their full advantage and not be pinned down by my political beliefs on the subject. Which is why you go onto public posting sites and slag me, instead of calling you your buddy Doug and saying Hey, these guys have a point, and you really ought to sell it to Adaptec management, since you are the guy who can make this change, as you already told Theo and others four months previously that you were the guy that could. But no. Scott Long goes and slags the people who are taking a different approach. Scott, you do NOT stand for free software. You only stand for whatever works. At least I am consistant in standing up for Free Software, and it has been working very well. I've freed up TONS of chipsets. What have you freed up lately? You work on RAID drivers, lots and lots of them, and you have not freed up ONE management interface. Why? I don't know. Has slagging me in public forums gotten you closer to opening up a RAID management interface? Nope. It has not. Was it fun? ps. When are you replacing the binary Atheros driver you have with the free one that we have reverse engineered? One that could be worked on by lots of people to make it better and better, unlike that .o file you ship. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
It's not a binary driver, it's a 2-clause BSD licensed driver that contains full source. You said that the OpenBSD driver is unstable, so I offered to help. That has nothing to do with binary apps. Deleting it from the OpenBSD tree is always an option, of course. The driver is free, but the tool is a binary. The interface tunnel is coded in the driver, so that the closed binary tool can talk through to the card. The messages exchanged are not documented, either. Same thing. You are saying There are open bits and I am saying There are closed bits This whole thing is about the closed bits, not about the open bits. Why do you keep apologizing for Adaptec, and attacking our efforts? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
It's not a binary driver, it's a 2-clause BSD licensed driver that contains full source. You said that the OpenBSD driver is unstable, so I offered to help. That has nothing to do with binary apps. From http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/pds.cgi?ports/sysutils/aaccli Sources for ports/sysutils/aaccli Sorry, did not find the sources for ports/sysutils/aaccli No source! Let's look closer http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/sysutils/aaccli/Makefile MASTER_SITES= http://download.adaptec.com/raid/ccu/freebsd/ DISTNAME= 5400s_fbsd_cli_v10 EXTRACT_SUFX= .zip ... RESTRICTED= May not be redistributed in binary form NO_CDROM= yes So there is a file somewhere that is a .zip file. It may not be put onto the official FreeBSD CDs (so obviously not OpenBSD CDs either) That's not really free is it. Let's look closer % ftp http://download.adaptec.com/raid/ccu/freebsd/5400s_fbsd_cli_v10.zip Trying 216.200.68.139... Requesting http://download.adaptec.com/raid/ccu/freebsd/5400s_fbsd_cli_v10.zip 100% || 565 KB 00:03 Successfully retrieved file. % unzip 5400s_fbsd_cli_v10.zip Archive: 5400s_fbsd_cli_v10.zip inflating: TRANS.TBL inflating: aaccli-1.0_0.tgz % tar xvfz aaccli-1.0_0.tgz +CONTENTS +COMMENT +DESC +POST-INSTALL bin/aaccli % file bin/aaccli bin/aaccli: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1, for FreeBSD 4.4, statically linked, not stripped That's a binary. Where is the source? Why do you keep talking about some Management binary? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
Sigh. Theo, there are lots of ways of interacting with other people: if you go out of your way to antagonize somebody, the result is generally not going to be positive. I think Scott is mature enough to continue to help other BSD projects-- including OpenBSD-- regardless, but this sort of thing: No, Scott is the person standing in the way of us and the RAID vendors by -- 1) insulting our (often very successful efforts) to free things -- in public forums 2) by signing NDA's with vendors so that those vendors who then come to believe that we should be signing NDA's too. 3) by not insisting at all that vendors open things at least a bit, Scott is not like Bill Paul or others who have opened up a lot of hardware, but is a lot more like Sam Leffler who has perpetuated this (and today, FreeBSD has one 802.11g/a driver -- and it uses binary bits). Those controllers will not be supported in OpenBSD 3.7 in May. If Adaptec wishes them to be supported in a future release, they had better come and make amends. We are sick of supporting the hardware of vendors who shit on their customers via us. Maybe they can repair this horrid situation enough that we will once again support their controllers by the time OpenBSD 3.8 ships in November. ...deliberately breaking OpenBSD's support for Adaptec hardware as some sort of ultimatum is a childish and self-destructive action. I hope the other OpenBSD committers veto any such action as being counterproductive and harmful to your users. Counter productive? About 6 years ago we did this with Qlogic because their firmware images were not free enough to ship in our releases, and after 6 months of wasting our time and being stalemated, we informed Qlogic and our user community (as well as YOUR user community) that we were removing the support for their controllers. A few days later the firmware was free. But now Scott --- one of your leading developers, and a previous Adaptec employee --- goes public and says that our efforts should not be assisted. What's in it for him? Otherwise, you're likely to discover that most people choose to run an OS which works with the hardware they have, rather than sticking with OpenBSD. We have no problem. People run non-free software all the time, such as Windows or the FreeBSD binary-only aaccli. It does not fit our principles though. But Scott feels that is reason to slag us. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
I personally don't care about Adaptec anymore, but I do care about the people there. If LSI or whoever else can provide better support, then that's fine with me. I do however have quite a bit of experience in knowing how things work at Adaptec and knowing what compromises can be made. Adaptec isn't one person, it isn't Doug Richardson or any other single individual. They do make a whole lot of stupid mistakes and close doors on opportunities, but there is no reason to vilify Doug for it. No, you don't vilify Doubg, but instead, you prefer to vilify me on public posting sites like osnews.com Great, Scott, just great. You don't know the difference between free software and binary software. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
What part of the FreeBSD AAC driver is closed, emcumbered, or otherwise non-free? The bits that do management. Therefore, the bits that let it do what RAID controllers are meant to do. Can you fully operate an aac(4) card -- 100% of it's abilities, on a FreeBSD machine, without using a binary only tool downloaded from the Dell web site? Are you being obtuse on purpose? Why don't you admit it. FreeBSD relies on non-free binary code for Adaptec raid management. You can't even put it onto a FreeBSD distribution CD. Why do you keep discussing the free stuff, and distracting everyone from the non-free bits? Is it because you used to work for Adaptec? Are you paid to distract people from the non-free code? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
I'll heartily agree that there is little reason for any company to keep information like this closed. Yet you are not helping. But going around making personal attacks on company employees that don't give you the cookie you want is pretty shitty too. Then I guess that Doug Richardson made a pretty big mistake over the last 6 months by not letting us talk to whoever pulls the strings. He said I was talking to the person who could and would change things. So you are talking out of your ass, Scott. There is no personal attack happening against Doug Richardson. We have simply found the conduit for users to express their grievances. As they say: The best customer is the one who complains. Well I have done the discovery process to find out where the customers can complain. To Doug Richardson. Not to some front line Adaptec apologist who cannot add up the controllers being mentioned and realize that 1,800 controllers so far is a hell of a lot of money, and that now that this is being discussed in public, they had better solve this. And how many more people have learned from this and will avoid Adaptec products? (perhaps these circles where it is being discusssed is on the fringe, but people in this fringe circle buy or are involved in the purchases for a LOT of hardware. Much like if Cisco fucks up and someone brings note of it to NANOG. Then Cisco jumps. If Adaptec does not jump now, Adaptec is retarded.) Scott, do you own Adaptec stock? I just cannot explain why you would attack me, and apologize for Adaptec's behaviour. Are you on drugs? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
I'm not stuffing anything down anyone's throats. You are insulting me on public lists. You are, thus, also telling your users not to bother your beloved Adaptec. You're telling them what the binary which you worked on is the best they are going to get. I'm enabling FreeBSD users to use the resources that are available to them. By attacking my efforts, you are telling them that the aaccli you worked on is the best they are going to get, and that participating with what I am doing is foolish. That's quite different than cancelling developer work and threatening to remove a driver due to a political dispute. The driver is not shipping because traction must be gained against a vendor who you are apologizing for. Freedom isn't about coercing others to believe the same things that I believe. Freedom is something one fights for. Freedom is not something that just happens. Freedom is something that happens when someone puts their toes out there, with a stance, an attempt, a struggle. Freedom is not something that happens when Scott long makes apologies for Adaptec and slags Theo on public sites ... when Theo decides to use his project to take action against non-freedom from a vendor. I am trying to do something to create greater freedom. You are not helping with my effort. Nor are you are not standing on the sidelines. You're FIGHTING ME. You are on Adaptec's closed side. I personally don't care about Adaptec anymore, but I do care about the people there. More than you care about getting the best freedom for FreeBSD or *BSD, or about the *other* people in the FreeBSD who might want that effort. No. You would rather stand up for the people at Adaptec. If LSI or whoever else can provide better support, then that's fine with me. I do however have quite a bit of experience in knowing how things work at Adaptec and knowing what compromises can be made. Then help me. Don't slag me. Adaptec isn't one person, it isn't Doug Richardson or any other single individual. They do make a whole lot of stupid mistakes and close doors on opportunities, but there is no reason to vilify Doug for it. Then help me. I am not vilifying Doug. Doug said we should go through him. Now he's getting mails from people, because he said we should go THROUGH HIM. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
Do you ask for the blueprints to the plane before you get onboard? Do you demand that Ford or GM give you the source to the fuel ingector computer before you get into a car? I'm saying that resources are out there that will allow OpenBSD users to manage their RAID arrays RIGHT NOW. No, they don't meet the goals of open source, but they meet the goals of getting the job done. If not having the source is a problem, then that's your choice and you don't have to use it. But why deprive people of a choice, like Theo wants. Freedom is about choice. FreeBSD users... watch how Scott argues against free software.. and cc's the person at Adaptec who he says we should not be mailing... oh boy ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
I'm done with this thread. A closed binary managmeent app isn't ideal, but it's better than nothing. I worked on it because I knew the compromises I could make at the time and I wanted to give the FreeBSD community something for it. I don't have infinite time and resources to fight the noble causes like Theo does, and I think that cooperation and comprise are better in the long run than constant conflict. If Theo or anyone else wants help on making the kernel driver better, let me know. If they want to help Adaptec follow through on it's stated plan to release suitable tools in the near future, then stop antagonizing them and making silly threats. The shouting and the threats and all the other tripe reflect poorly on everyone, whether you choose to see it or not, and _that's_ what I oppose in Theo, not his passion for openness. That's what you oppose? And then just moments earlier you send a mail (shown below) in which you SPECIFICALLY cc the people at Adaptec, and you SPECIFICALLY oppose freedom? Scott Long, you do not believe in either openness or freedom. This is a sad sad day for FreeBSD. -- Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:50:51 -0700 From: Scott Long [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Ben Goren [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Doug Richardson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Adaptec AAC raid support Ben Goren wrote: On 2005 Mar 19, at 1:08 PM, Scott Long wrote: Why is it so important to drag your users into your political fights by depriving them of stuff that works now but isn't exactly everything that you want? Granted, I don't use RAID on any system at the moment, and haven't used Adaptec products in the past. But I would hardly consider having to halt the machine to even check the status of the array ``stuff that works.'' Would you be happy flying in a plane in perfect mechanical condition...except that all diagnostic gauges (fuel level, oil pressure and temperature, fire detectors, hydraulic pressure, etc.) only worked when the plane was stationary on the ground? Would you go on a transoceanic flight in such a plane? All I can say is that I'm damned thankful Adaptec doesn't make aircraft equipment, if this is what they think of as ``stuff that works.'' And if this *were* aircraft equipment we were talking about, would you still be chiding people for being pinned down by political beliefs on the subject? This discussion is doing nothing but proving two things: A) Adaptec is suffering from an astounding lack of professionalism; and ii) Theo's pride of craftsmanship is something sorely lacking in the rest of the computing world. Cheers, b Do you ask for the blueprints to the plane before you get onboard? Do you demand that Ford or GM give you the source to the fuel ingector computer before you get into a car? I'm saying that resources are out there that will allow OpenBSD users to manage their RAID arrays RIGHT NOW. No, they don't meet the goals of open source, but they meet the goals of getting the job done. If not having the source is a problem, then that's your choice and you don't have to use it. But why deprive people of a choice, like Theo wants. Freedom is about choice. Scott ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Adaptec AAC raid support
Well spoken, Ben. Very well spoken. On 2005 Mar 19, at 1:21 PM, Scott Long wrote: The hardware is tricky to get right and there are bugs in different cards and different firmware versions that often need to be worked around. It's all documented in my driver, and I'm happy to share my knowledge. I used to think good things of Adaptec hardware, and always figured they'd be at the top of any list I ever put together should I need to buy RAID hardware. This one paragraph has all but convinced me that I'd be nuts to do so. First, we have an ex-employee stating that the stuff is ``tricky'' and full of bugs. Not something I want to trust critical data to. Next, that different cards and different firmware versions have bugs that ``often need to be worked around'' also does not inspire confidence. If Adaptec *knows* about these bugs, why is it left to the driver to fix? Why hasn't it been fixed *IN*THE*FIRMWARE*? Finally, we learn that these bugs are semi-public knowledge...but that Adaptec is *STILL* refusing to provide the information necessary to work around them. Instead, you have to hope that their ex-employees follow through with offers to share their knowledge. Those are three serious strikes. Any one of them would be a probable deal-breaker for me. While I'm sure nobody's perfect...surely there are other vendors who produce products which aren't so buggy in the first place, who fix their bugs once they find them, and warn people what to look out for? Frankly, if Mr. Long is providing an accurate description of the quality of Adaptec products--and, after all, he used to work there, so he should know--then I'd say that Theo would be nuts *not* to pull support from them. After all, why should OpenBSD get blamed for Adaptec's crap? Cheers, b [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of PGP.sig] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mail Delivery Subsystem: Returned mail: see transcript for details
Adaptec, as a vendor, really cares about you. That is why their commercial contacts disable their email accounts when the shit hits the fan. That is Doug Richardson Title? Global Channel Marketing Manager The guy who said *HE* was the one responsible for changing views within Adaptec. Buggy hardware, lies about freedom... lies. OpenBSD 3.7 ships without Adaptec RAID support. - The following addresses had permanent fatal errors - [EMAIL PROTECTED] (reason: 550 [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Recipient address rejected: No such user ([EMAIL PROTECTED])) - Transcript of session follows - ... while talking to aimspam1.adaptec.com.: RCPT To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 550 [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Recipient address rejected: No such user ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 550 5.1.1 [EMAIL PROTECTED]... User unknown - --j2K37Hr00590.288037/magic.adaptec.com Content-Type: message/delivery-status ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: aac support
There has got to be a better way to work with the vendors in order to get the support we need. It just seem to me that the screw you guys, I am going home stuff just does not work. Well, there is. We do it all the time! We mail a vendor, and then we start a frank dialogue. I (or some other developer, maybe even Bill Paul from FreeBSD (Mr. Ethernet)... anyways, people like that.. ) explain the business case to the vendor. They almost always understand, and then give us documentation. Sometimes they open the documentation wide up! Sometimes they are willing to give us documentation as long as we do not distribute it too far, and we are willing to do that. We normally share it with, say, 3-4 developers, to ensure that the job gets done and that there someone can fix it later. This also ensures that the documentation stays around in someone's hands even if the company goes away (like Adaptec might after the FTC gets finished with them?) I spend a LOT of time explaining the business case. When vendors do not work with us, they are the odd vendors. Normally they are companies with strong USA stock profiles. I don't know if that has something to do with it, but I suspect it does. And normally they are ones that people, down underground, know produce crap. This also ties into how sometimes it is very hard for us to support their hardware. But, and I must emphasize this, 90% of companies *do* come around. The vendors need a business case in order to do things - they are in business to make money and I can agree with that. Maybe we can do some sort of list of companies or OpenBSD people that use or would use the cards - along with number and install base study of the number of sales they would get and give it to them. We should work on some sort of cookie cutter type setup that tracks the interest and $$ with a product that we can compile and be sent to the vendor in order to get support. The data needs to be correct and true and presented in a business case manor. The one-off flock of emails just do not work. I would be happy to help with this and pursue this if there are others that think it is a good idea. I have thought about doing this, but it is a lot of work. I think we all know what needs to be done to make this accurate. It is a very big job and it needs one passionate person to run it from start to end. It cannot at this time be me, sorry. Also is there needs to be a stock form that is send the vendors that covers in detail what we ask for. I do not think so. I write each mail to the vendors individually, taking the situation and the market into account. I research the market at the stock level, and I ask people in various parts of the world to help me form a profile of what chips are showing up there. If not done carefully, they will be right to take me for a crank. Some that can be vetted by their lawyer that they would be OK with. When the lawyers get involved, that is when the companies make bad decisions and lose. OpenBSD 3.7 will ship with aac off. Adaptec just lost. No matter how they sell it within their own ranks, they just lost. Unless they have something to hide, like crap cards with hundreds of unrepearable bugs and a history of selling crap to customers after knowing that their product was not meeting the promises they make. But what do I know for sure. I do however believe they are balancing two choices of reality. We need to work with the vendors in a clear, clean business like manner and leave emotion and philosophy out of it. I do. It is hard. I do it every day. Last week we got Ralink documentation. I am working on Realtek for their 802.11g docs now. And in a few days, if Realtek keeps stalling me, you will hear from me as to where to send your mails. And then we can get further at supporting a chipset. One way or another, at some point we must get *ahead* of Microsoft at supporting new hardware products on the market. (Show this previous line to your Linux friends) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
