[nycbug-talk] Fwd: Adaptec AAC raid support

[G. Rosamond]

On Mar 21, 2005, at 1:15 PM, Isaac Levy wrote:

> Wordup All,
>
> On Mar 18, 2005, at 6:56 PM, G. Rosamond wrote:
>
>> This is a thread well worth following. . .
> [snip OpenBSD Adapted RAID saga]
>
> For those of you who didn't follow this thread, OpenBSD 3.7 will ship  
> without Adaptec RAID support, as made slashdot yesterday:
>
> http://bsd.slashdot.org/bsd/05/03/20/1944233.shtml? 
> tid=137&tid=198&tid=190&tid=172&tid=7

That is true. . .

>
> IMHO: Go Theo.  Walking the walk aint' easy, glad someone's tough in  
> Open Source.

It seems a bit more complicated than that though. . .

First, it is clear that the Adaptec debate has built more walls between  
OpenBSD and FreeBSD.  That is why I would hold off on cheering for  
either Scott Long of FreeBSD and Theo of OpenBSD.  Negative divisions,  
as opposed to different focuses and directions, is *not* good by any  
means.

Second, the argument is a lot more complex, IMHO, than for or against  
open source.  For those out of the loop on this one, and out of the  
loop seems like a good place to be sometimes, this brutal and often  
personal argument was cross posted between OBSD-misc and FreeBSD  
questions.

To the extent that we matter, I would strongly NYCBUG's efforts need to  
work to keep the BSD projects on the same page.  This is not competing  
'distros', or open source v closed.  But if one thing could be said  
about it, it's clear that FreeBSD and OpenBSD both have different  
approaches with vendors who do not provide the needed documentation.   
Scott Long of FreeBSD's argument was that we should work with the  
vendors, and just aim towards getting the hardware, such as the Adaptec  
RAID cards, up and operational, even if it means that we use closed  
binary drivers and utilities.  Theo of OpenBSD, on the other hand,  
feels strongly that vendors not providing the necessary documentation,  
NOT source, after repeated queries are a huge problem.

I'm not coming down on either side, but I also think that anything that  
builds walls between the projects is VERY BAD.  When you have four  
groups of talented developers not approaching the politics of hardware  
porting on the same page, and they don't have the public presence or  
corporate backing of Linux, I think it's a big step backward for all.

>
> --
> With that stated, as the dust is settling with this issue- and myself  
> being a bit outside of the daily-use OpenBSD camp, what is everyone  
> going to use for RAID on OpenBSD?  (I'm particularly interested in  
> sata hardware raid...?!?)
>

They are pushing all the other cards. . .  most recently, the card  
mentioned repeatedly was the LSI/AMI MegaRAID.

If anyone's interested in the argument, they should go back to the  
archives of either list.

George