Are FreeBSD developers ever going to start focusing on user facing stuff?

throAU said:
Erm.

Incompatible hardware is the system builder's fault, for not checking the hardware compatibility list prior to purchase.
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His complaint was that FreeBSD did not support the hardware. I agree, though, that it is relatively simple to find hardware that works well with FreeBSD.
Expecting the hardware vendor to support every OS ever made is unreasonable
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And expecting FreeBSD, on its own, to support every piece of hardware is even more unreasonable. That's the point I'm trying to address. Too many people blame FreeBSD for that when it's not their responsibility and it's the failure of the hardware vendors to supply drivers or drivers that we can work on ourselves.

Which, as I type this, I notice you are saying also.
 
It can also be said that FreeBSD is a moving target for hardware vendors who would be willing to provide FreeBSD drivers for their products because of the ever changing kernel API. This is one area where FreeBSD could improve a lot making it easier to hardware vendors to provide drivers that don't have to recompiled and possibly adapted for the changed kernel API for every minor version upgrade. This would also open up the possibility to HW hardware vendors to provide binary only drivers that you could in principle trust to work in one binary driver per major version of FreeBSD fashion.
 
It would be fine if hardware vendors just documented their equipment. Drivers can then be produced without further commitment from the vendor, and it avoids the binary blob problem.
 
wblock@ said:
It would be fine if hardware vendors just documented their equipment. Drivers can then be produced without further commitment from the vendor, and it avoids the binary blob problem.
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The problem is that this may not be allowed. Even if the hardware vendor wants to they may be limited by another party's intellectual property. Suppose VendorA uses components from VendorB and VendorB has put IP restrictions on it. Even if VendorA wants to provide any and all documentation needed to create a driver they may not be able to because of the restrictions put up by VendorB. We can complain about VendorA until we see green in the face but the actual problem is with VendorB.

I'm not saying I'm fine with that (discussions about IP restrictions will probably generate enough traffic to justify their own forum), just that I can understand why some vendors may not be allowed to provide the information we need.
 
SirDice said:
The problem is that this may not be allowed. Even if the hardware vendor wants to they may be limited by another party's intellectual property. Suppose VendorA uses components from VendorB and VendorB has put IP restrictions on it. Even if VendorA wants to provide any and all documentation needed to create a driver they may not be able to because of the restrictions put up by VendorB. We can complain about VendorA until we see green in the face but the actual problem is with VendorB.

I'm not saying I'm fine with that (discussions about IP restrictions will probably generate enough traffic to justify their own forum), just that I can understand why some vendors may not be allowed to provide the information we need.
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Makes you wonder what would happen if the majority of open-source operating systems and distributions went libre. More, so if provided was a very clear list of known compatible hardware, next to a list of hardware awaiting vendor correspondence. The list would have to include complete working laptops.

But, this would never really be a concern for the vendors, since it would never happen.
There just wouldn't be enough hardware variety. There would be one or two open-source systems hanging on to blobs, reaping the monopoly.
 
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FreeBSD doesn't have a product management team or a strong dictator, at least as far as I know. Without those things, the effort by developers is put toward what the developer wants, which may not be what you want.

I do, unfortunately, see FreeBSD slowly becoming less and less relevant as time goes on. I continue to use it, but mostly out of laziness than anything else. I don't even know what version of FreeBSD my one box has. Probably 8.x or something.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
So I guess you think Netflix switching to FreeBSD was a blunder on their part.
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I doubt that Netflix needs FreeBSD as a desktop OS for their systems.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
So I guess you think Netflix switching to FreeBSD was a blunder on their part.
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Could be. I have a colleague that works there; I should ask him if he knows what motivated that decision.
 
We've worked on a nice foolproof desktop based on FreeBSD and GNOME 2 and it's matured nicely except for a raft of natty hardware issues that we all know about. However, for older machines it can't be beat. And if only we'd been able to get funding to continue our project, we'd probably have QUITE the acceptable replacement for XP as well as older Apple machines that can't load anything newer than Snow Leopard. There's LOTS of people out there with these two issues. However, without money, I've had to go to work for one of the above mentioned companies and pretty much give up on the KNOS Project. For anyone curious as to what we've done, our website is still lit and the remaining people are about to release a new version in the coming weeks:

http://knosproject.com

As for myself, I won't stop using FreeBSD, I've invested too much time in it and have it right where I want a desktop environment to be. I've tried the other BSD's and FreeBSD is something I intend to stick with. I grew up on the original Slackware 2.0.8 and have a long history with Linux. No thanks to where they've gone since.

As to Netflix, I'm sure their reasoning for FreeBSD is the same as Yahoo and other major sites who cling to FreeBSD: it's reliable, it's secure and most importantly, it's STABLE.

If Netflix is looking for desktops though, they might want to have a look at ours since it's fully cooked and working. :)
 
Well, well, well, @Pushrod, @drhowarddrfine, @kpa, and @KNOStic looks like we have the Doom and Gloom team here.

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I seem to have little to no problem finding people to use FreeBSD as a desktop system. Perhaps using it in the schools may help.
 
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drhowarddrfine said:
Too many people blame FreeBSD for that when it's not their responsibility and it's the failure of the hardware vendors to supply drivers or drivers that we can work on ourselves.

Which, as I type this, I notice you are saying also.
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No, I'm not blaming FreeBSD. I'm also not blaming the hardware vendors. They have operating systems they provide support for, and it is entirely up to them how many resources they want to devote to any particular OS.

In the case of FreeBSD (or Linux, etc.) that amount is often zero - and that is their decision to make.

It's not anyone's "fault", I suspect it is an entirely cost/benefit driven choice. Or it could be a legal reason. At the end of the day, the WHY is not entirely relevant. The reality of the situation as what we need to deal with.

If you or I want to install an unsupported (by the hardware vendor), uncommon OS on our hardware, it is up to us to do the legwork in advance to ensure we pick something that works, or live with the consequences.

Buying something that does not list FreeBSD on the box and expecting it to just magically work is folly. If more people (e.g., the system builder in my previous post) contacted the vendor first with a query regarding foo OS support, they'd perhaps be more likely to consider said support.


edit:
Obligatory car analogy: If you buy a car that runs on gasoline, and expect to fill it with diesel, who's fault is that?
 
CurlyTheStooge said:
That's a news of a forgotten past. Any links for current association of Yahoo with FreeBSD? They seemed to switch to Linux long ago.
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At least three high profile FreeBSD developers work for Yahoo. Most of the stuff they commit comes from Yahoo.

Also, large parts of the FreeBSD server infrastructure are hosted by Yahoo.
 
wblock@ said:
It would be fine if hardware vendors just documented their equipment. Drivers can then be produced without further commitment from the vendor, and it avoids the binary blob problem.
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For whatever reason, documentation may not be supplied. The hardware vendor has made a choice what software to support, anything outside of that - all bets are off.

Sure it would be ideal if they did document the hardware, but there may be reasons they can not (or will not). It may even be as simple as "we don't want to". If we can encourage them to do so, great. However it may not be possible.

On the flip-side, having a stable driver model to accomodate binary drivers supplied by the vendor would also enable them to release drivers without disclosure of things they may not be at liberty to disclose.

Sure, it's not ideal, but I'm sure the guy with driver-less hardware would rather have a functioning device than a doorstop.
 
joel@ said:
At least 3 high profile FreeBSD developers work for Yahoo. Most of the stuff they commit comes from Yahoo.
Also, large parts of the FreeBSD server infrastructure are hosted by Yahoo.
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I'd say that's rather pleasant news to me.

Regards.
 
vermaden said:
Sad but true.
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Sad? Hmm.

Just because you have a hammer (FreeBSD) it doesn't mean everything you encounter (e.g., desktop use) is a nail.

I've tried to use FreeBSD on the desktop for years, and there are just simply too many features I need to give up. Sure I could do it (and have done so), but given that I got an OS X license with my hardware it's just making life more difficult for no real gain for me.

Conversely on the back end, on servers the reverse is true. OS X is just too limiting, and FreeBSD's lack of desktop features are irrelevant in that space.

PC-BSD is getting there, but still has some way to go.
 
I for one wish persons suggesting that the desktop usage is not worth one's while to give specific examples so maybe improvements could be made; I've been using it as my principal desktop ( on computers and laptops ) for almost a decade, without hardly ever a divergence to any use of any other operating system, and still have original files from the 2004 install here and there, despite many hard disk failures [some involving the freezer trick data saves...]
 
throAU said:
Sad? Hmm.
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Yes, sad.

throAU said:
I've tried to use FreeBSD on the desktop for years, and there is just simply too many features I need to give up. Sure I could do it (and have done so), but given that I got an OS X license with my hardware it's just making life more difficult for no real gain for me.
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That is why FreeBSD sucks in 'desktop space'. If developers would instead sit down and nail all these inconvenient problems one by one, then FreeBSD would be very usable as a desktop, but it's easier to give up and use Mac OS X.
 
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