(...)
>> yes, and when 10,000 people email/write/phone them and tell them 'hey 
>> guys, i'd like to buy blablabla, but blablabla' then you have much more 
>> impact than buying 1,000,000 of blablabla and STFU.
>>
> 
> Not really, that's called harassment.  Just ask the OpenBSD guys how
> far it got them with Adaptec, Sun and others.

Adaptec is no longer recommended to be used running OpenBSD. period.

> Money talks, talk, well
> is just talk "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

yes, money talks, no, money shouts! it shouts 100,000 people to death 
each and every day (they have nothing to eat). it shouts billions (!) of 
people to sell their soul everyday to make a few men and women even 
richer -- for nothing.

money makes a nice god, indeed.

>> so you'd try to convince ATI to invest x million dollars to write a 
>> driver (blob) for NetBSD (and maybe -- hopefully! -- other OSs) to gain 
>> y millions (highly exaggerated) in sales, where x > y?
>>
> 
> No, you miss the point - the aim is to convince them there is a
> worthwhile market.  If you can get that across then you may have some
> leverage to get things opened up.  More than likely, the techs inside
> the company want this to happen, it's the upper management/lawyers
> that cannot see the point unless it means more market share.

market share is not the point.

>> ah, i see, it's emotive to follow NetBSDs goal as an OS that runs on 
>> many platforms, ya? that's not emotive.
> 
> No but claiming that, somehow, accepting the fact I need to run a blob
> to make some hardware work is "killing the other architectures" is
> just slightly on the dramatic side.

so, would someone please delete anything != i386 and amd64 from the cvs?

>> do you know the definition of 
>> the word 'emotive' and the metaphysics of it? i doubt it, strongly. 
>> don't use emotive as a buzzword, there are better ones and you will 
>> really help bullshit bingo players to get their game to an end avoiding 
>> 'emotive' as nobody bets on it.
>>
> 
> There you go again - trying to use an ad hominem

you were the homo sapiens sapiens who introduced emotive; any reaction 
is unfair, as you say. go figure.

> attack to try and
> belittle someone who has the temerity to disagree with your
> posturing.  All you are doing is waving your arms and blustering.  You
> blather about 'karma' and the NetBSD mission but you don't understand
> it.  If you actually looked at the NetBSD licence then you would find
> that what it gives you freedom to do what you want with the software.
> What you want to do is take my freedoms away by telling me it is not
> good enough to accept a method of making my hardware work if I choose
> to do so.  You will not take this away from me, you may posture all
> you want but all I see is nothingness - you don't have an alternative,
> all you want to do is shout people down.  Until you can do something
> better than that I suggest you keep your extremism to yourself.

thanks for proving my saying that you don't understand the discussion.

>> it'd be even better, even 'excellent' running windows.
>>
> 
> By a small margin but I choose not to.

``that's emotive.''

>> no, that's just test balloons how they are accepted by the 'community'.
>>
> 
> To some extent - and if they are ignored then those test balloons will
> sink into obscurity.

yes, and the blob-denying folks saved time, resources, and lots of hot air.

>> i really hope you get the point. others already did.
>>
> 
> Again, we have the snide inference that I am too stupid to understand
> what you are saying.  More likely the other people have just given you
> up as a total waste of time which is looking like a very sensible
> option right now.
> 
>> if not, i strongly recommend taking some classes on dialectics of 
>> discussion or similar.
>>
> 
> I don't see a "discussion" happening here - you are just trying to
> belittle and shout people down,

i) i'm not shouting anybody down (makes me interested in your definition 
of 'shouting' or 'shouting down'), ii) people != you, plurar vs. singular.

> when they all give up on you you will,
> no doubt, dance around believing everyone has "seen" your point of
> view.  If you want a purely open source derived machine then, fine,
> live with the lossage or within the limits of what that provides.
> Just make sure you don't try to take away my freedoms.

i never will take away any capitalists freedom. especially as (s)he 
demands it being the only truth in the universe (already proven wrong by 
billions of deaths).

timo