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