Re: Net driver update for S900 required

[Mark Pavlichuk]

Yoshinori K. Okuji wrote:

> On Tuesday 14 October 2003 03:58, Mark Pavlichuk wrote:
>  
>
> >  My understanding now is that Hans-Peter Jansen was going to take on
> > the difficult job of synching the modern etherboot drivers with grub...
> > Doesn't seem he has posted to this or the etherboot list for a while
> > (since August?).  Ken Yap (one of the etherboot head men) doesn't seem
> > to appreciate the grub sourcecode aesthetics or overall design
> > philosophy and wasn't excited about helping, and the grub people (the
> > few, the proud, the insane?) weren't particularly enthusiastic about the
> > task themselves.
> >    
>
> After all, your problem is yours, not but any other's. Everybody acts as 
> his/her own priority. If he/she is interested in solving your problem, he/she 
> will do. Otherwise, he/she won't. That's the so-called freedom.
>  
 It wasn't my intention to insult anyone.  I understand that 
maintaining a project such as yours would take
a lot of energy and probably a lot more time than you have free.

 I was just asking if anyone was working on the problem, because if 
noone is I'll have to decide how to
deal with this problem myself.

> About your problem, I'm more or less interested in fixing it, because I want 
> to make GRUB better, but not because I want to support you personally. So I 
> appreciate if you fix it and send a patch to us, but I don't want to make any 
> attempt to fix it myself. My time is limited and I have many others things to 
> do.
>  
 This was my understanding of your position from reading the mailing list.

> Sometimes people ask, "I did blah blah, and it didn't work. Why?" But I want 
> to say, "Who knows?" If you did something, you are the only one who can 
> investigate what happens, unless you give us every piece of information.
>  
 My investigation has shown that the new etherboot drivers will 
probably help with my S900 problem,
but not with my via-rhine problem.  (I compiled the new etherboot and it 
works with S900 and not with
our via-rhine cards.  The new etherboot S900 driver includes fixes from 
Linux kernel 2.4.17, and our cards
seem only to work work with 2.4.17 and up).

> This is my advise: If you think you can work more on your problem, please go 
> ahead. We can support you, as far as your questions are what we know already. 
> Otherwise, please find someone else willing to work on your problem. If you 
> are quite lucky, you can find such a person without money. But it is normally 
> easier to find a talented person, if you pay money to the person. Generally 
> speaking, support is not free in the sense of "free beer".
>
> Okuji
>  
 My last email was basically to see if Hans-Peter Jansen was still 
working on the problem.

 BTW, I have some idea how frustrating running a volunteer effort can 
be.  I'm not an active coder but I've
recently organised a Linux installfest for my home city.  Everyone has 
plenty of ideas on making things better
but noone seems to want to help.

-Mark