*BSD News Article 24851


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From: eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale)
Subject: Re: aha2742. why no 386bsd driver soon.
Message-ID: <CHs8J0.85r@ra.nrl.navy.mil>
Sender: usenet@ra.nrl.navy.mil
Organization: Naval Research Laboratory
References: <BPRIEST.93Dec9091407@adr14.adrs1.dseg.ti.com> <2e7kch$41a@homer.cs.mcgill.ca> <2e7oak$s8d@explorer.clark.net>
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 19:23:24 GMT
Lines: 29

In article <2e7oak$s8d@explorer.clark.net> ack@clark.net (Eric S. Hvozda) writes:
>Hmmmm, I find this all very interesting.  It appears that Adaptec is going down 
>the path that Diamond has chosen.  Anyone think this might become a trend
>among hardware vendors to attempt to edge out free OSs like *BSD and Linux?

	I doubt that Adaptec cares one way or another about linux or *BSD.
Their official line (as far as linux is concerned) is that the boards are not
supported under linux, which is probably due to the fact that they did not
write the drivers.  The same is undoubtably true for *BSD.

	I suspect that their real concern is other manufacturers that might
want to make clone boards (such as BusLogic).  Now in theory the clone
manufacturers could request the information in order to make a clone board, but
they would have to clone the HIM as well.  Adaptec could of course then claim
that the cloned HIM contained intellectual property belonging to Adaptec (a la
BSDI/USL).  Voila - a legal morass.

	Someone else recommended the Buslogic boards for *BSD and linux.  I
would agree that this is a very good choice.  Their tech support is reputed to
be very good, and they are quite forthcoming with technical information (such
as on the native Buslogic mode for the board as opposed to the 1542 emulation
mode).  Linux supports some of the Ultrastor boards as well, and these are also
worth examining.  I do not know what the situation with Ultrastor and *BSD is.

-Eric

-- 
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep,
And lines to code before I sleep, And lines to code before I sleep."