Timo Schoeler wrote:
> thus Bill Studenmund spake:
>> On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 03:17:15PM +0200, Timo Schoeler wrote:
>>> (...)
>>>> 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.
>>
>> It sure seems you are. Your response to disagreement is to continue
>> speaking forcefully
>
> sure. i do have my opinion (here: wrt blobs).
>
> there are dozens, if not hundreds of subscribers of the mailing list
> that obviously inherently agree with blobs being evil. otherwise they
> would respond (even if it'd be only a fraction of them, you could see
> some emails) to this thread.

I contend that this is a false assumption.  I had not responded to this
point, simply because the tone of discussion had left one of productive
reasoning, and I didn't see any reason to get involved.

Of course I would prefer to have _source_, but I also recognize there
are cases for binary blobs.  I believe ath(4) is one such case.  I've
worked with another WIFI architecture that used blobs as well, and it
worked out okay.

My biggest complaint with blobs is lack of portability, but in at least
one case (ath(4)) the supplier has gone out of his way to make sure the
blob is available for any platform that might have the hardware.

I totally disagree with any stance we take that prevents binary blobs
from being used with the operating system.  It will prevent NetBSD from
being used in a number of scenarios going forward.

If folks want NetBSD to thrive, the best way to do so is not to go
around trying to piss off vendors.  We represent such a tiny percentage
of marketshare that most vendors won't think twice over blowing us off. 
That would make contributions like my recent radeonfb contribution
(which was developed from NDA docs and sources, and had to have ATI's
approval to be open sourced) much, much harder.

There, I've said my piece on the matter, and I will probably not say
anything else on it.  But don't take my silence as agreement with your
position, please.


-- 
Garrett D'Amore, Principal Software Engineer
Tadpole Computer / Computing Technologies Division,
General Dynamics C4 Systems
http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/
Phone: 951 325-2134  Fax: 951 325-2191