Re: [FC1], 2.6.8-rc2 kernel, new motherboard problems

[Lee Revell <rlrevell@joe-job.com>]

On Sat, 2004-07-24 at 08:16, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> Gene Heskett schrieb:
> 
> > On Saturday 24 July 2004 02:06, Lee Revell wrote:

> >>>>Wow, nVidia won't release the specs for a *10/100 ethernet
> >>>>controller*? Having to reverse engineer a network driver is
> >>>>ridiculous in this day and age.  I can understand binary-only
> >>>>graphics drivers, there is a lot of valuable IP in there, but
> >>>>this is a freaking network card.  What do they expect people to
> >>>>do?
> >>>>
> >>>>Maybe some bad press would set them straight.
> >>>>
> >>>>Lee
> 
> Could you please check the facts (or ask the driver authors) before
> suggesting to haunt NVidia with bad press? Thanks.
> 

All the facts I needed to know were in the original post.  You had to
reverse engineer a network driver because Nvidia would not release
specs.  We should not be having to reverse engineer a 10/100 ethernet
controller in 2004.  The Linux community should make noise when vendors
do this.
 
> > I'm under the impression the forcedeth writers did have access to this 
> > data.  Is this incorrect? The question is directed at the forcedeth 
> > authors.  If you are one, then please clarify.
> 
> I am one of the authors. We did not have any information in the first
> place, but now that our reverse engineered driver works well, NVidia
> contributed bugfixes and gigabit support to our driver.

This is pretty shoddy on their part.  Like I said, I can understand not
wanting to release the specs for their GFX cards, but a freaking 10/100
ethernet controller is ridiculous.

Lee