[openbeosnetteam] Re: porting FreeBSD's new netstack

  • From: Waldemar Kornewald <Waldemar.Kornewald@xxxxxx>
  • To: openbeosnetteam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 12:34:32 +0200

Lars Hansson wrote: 

Waldemar Kornewald wrote:

The NDIS wrapper helps us to get market share. 

I wasnt aware getting significant market share was a Haiku goal,
at east I havent seen it stated anywhere.

Well, we want to become a good Desktop OS and we need market share to get companies to write apps for Haiku. Otherwise Haiku will stay a niche-product.

We cannot live without drivers and currently it is the only possibility for us to get them. 

No, it's the only way to get drivers from *misguided* manufacturers.
Currently this is most prominent in the 802.11g sector but, just as
it happened with ethernet chipsets, manufacturers will release their
driver specs when they realize that doing so gives them more sales and
also gives them positive PR.
Having an NDIS wrapper completely defeats this and gives the
manufacturers just another reason NOT to release their specifications.

Right. I see the problem, but I also want to buy the best WiFi card without looking at whether Haiku supports it or not. It should JustWork(tm). We will delete the NDIS wrapper when we got enough people around us. ;)
There is no really good answer to this question. If your networking card works you can say "we don't want NDIS!", but if you card did/does not work many people will say "give me at least NDIS, if not a native driver". NDIS is not bad, it just is not Perfect(tm). Even the BSD and Linux guys have one and they probably had more problems with that.
If you know that there is no native driver for some card, will you buy it? I would not because I do not NDIS will run as fast and as stable as a native driver. But if I already have the card, I will be happy with a temporary solution.

Bye,
Waldemar

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