[plug] PCI ADSL cards

[Chris Caston]

Sent to:  Traverse Sales    
Your reply email:  caston at iinet.net.au    
Your comments:  

Greetings I am interested in in purchasing a Pulsar PCI ADSL card.

I have been advised to avoid hardware with binary only drivers to avoid
compatibility problems with future or custom modified Linux kernals.

Is there any chance of releasing the source code for your drivers?

Thanks,

Chris




On Wed, 2002-11-20 at 10:15, Chris Caston wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-11-19 at 21:55, Craig Ringer wrote:
> > > Pulsar adsl pci cards seem to have driver for 2.4.18 amongst others
> > >
> > > http://www.traverse.com.au/downloads/drivers/
> > >
> > > http://www.traverse.com.au/products/default.asp?p=8
> > >
> > > $226 (ex gst) available here
> > 
> > 
> > ... but what if they decide that this linux thing isn't so interesting 
> > after all and don't support 2.6 or whatever. Wouldn't that begin to piss 
> > you off in say a year?
> 
> 
> Yeh or if they go solvent or get bought out or get some new CEO that
> wants to cut costs.
> 
> Still I could ask them if thye are ever likely to release the source
> code....
> 
> > I just don't want to go near binary only drivers.
> > 
> > $ lsmod | grep NV
> > NVdriver
> > 
> > well.... mostly. I think the NVidia drivers are about as safe as you can 
> > get in binary driver terms. I wish they were open source but with NVidia 
> > they actually have /reasons/ (patent issues - the stupid US patent 
> > system, getting sued, honestly technically interesting driver code). 
> > Most hardware providers have nothing much to hide in the drivers and 
> > refuse to disclose hardware info out of paranoia and habit, from what 
> > I've heard. People who make NICs, TV/Radio tuners, video gear, cameras 
> > and other USB stuff, etc are common culprits.
> >
> It's silly if their business model is selling hw then they shouldn't
> have any problems with open sourceing their drivers. Its just red tape
> that gets stuck all over you and ties you to the train track.
> 
> > I'd be thinking of putting it in the "a bit risky" basket personally.
> > 
> > Craig Ringer
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>