>> I was just discussing the possibility of paying someone to develop
>> one with my boss last week. We're certainly open to the idea
>> here. To my mind the lack of any real RAID solution for FreeBSD is
>> the biggest flaw with the OS. If this is a serious suggestion we
>> would be very open to pitching in.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^ Assuming that the driver will be free
>and avilable to everyone we will match you $ for $. If thats what it
>takes to bring RAID support to FreeBSD, then why not. This way we can get
>what we want and at the same time contribute somthing back to FreeBSD
>which has done so much for us, a win-win deal ;-)
Of course. We don't care whether or not it's freely available. We
just need it. We assume that whatever gets developed will be
freely available. The point is this -- if it takes a $1000 to pay
someone with a proven freebsd/scsi track record to develop a driver
that will let us use a dpt smartraid IV, it's still one hell of a
lot less than switching to another platform, porting loads of stuff
over, etc. And it's a pittance compared to the cost of most
RAID solutions. Frankly, it's money well spent.
So yes, we're interested in matching you $ for $. The problem is
finding the right person to do it. I'm relatively new to FreeBSD,
I have to admit, and don't really know the people working on it.
I got an email message from bob@luke.pmr.com who was working on it;
here's what he said:
>Well, I still have it on my to-do list. Unfortunately(?), I have
>been swamped with paying work lately and haven't made much progress
>on this project.
>I don't believe there is too much that has to be done, so once I
>do find some time to work on it I feel it should go pretty quickly.
Joe Mays