[ros-kernel] WDF - Windows Driver Foundation

[Mike Nordell]

Tobias Ussing top posted:

> False.

Perhaps the following post could be worth studying?

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=MPG.1af4121bdb9b13729896ef@news.alt.net

Thank you. Writing "False." as the first paragraph in a post makes about as
much sense as starting a reply with any other word not meaning anything
without a context.

> What about the standard genuine ne2k network card?

<soapbox>

It was screwed over by MS when they decided "We don't like ISA and we're to
make it look as bad as possible by sucking all available kernel-CPU
(DPC-time) to make the machine go as slow as possible" since Windows 2000.
It actually works so slow in NT5 that it can't even keep up with incoming
10Mbps (!), whereas any previous OS (incl. the Win9x series I have had the
questionable pleasure of testing) have no such problems.

However, ReactOS isn't made by Microsoft... :-)

> Already with XP you have to have a pnp network card, and you can't tell it
> what driver to use(unless you do some work, and have a win2k disk).

This is not the way of free software, and ReactOS will not start
force-feeding people. For a proprietary vendor of Microsofts size it might
make some kind of wicked business-sense to intentionally piss users of older
hardware off, but then they're a corporation - money and market-share is
all, user satisfaction isn't even on the scale unless it hurts their
business.

To me ReactOS is about the complete opposite: user satisfaction is all, and
market share isn't even on the scale unless it hurts user satisfaction.

> If ROS focus solely on this new "big thing", all the older vanila cards
> wont work.

Don't worry. NE2000 will be supported as long as there are users and/or
developers still using it.

> Atleast not till a driver is made, and even then, many older devices
> wont get the new drivers, since they are obsolote.

Obsolete is a very strong word to use. Perhaps it's technically an obsolete
NIC (it is - even that I both own and even depend upon a few myself, without
this text could never have been sent), but while such hardware and drivers
are still in wide use across this little globe we live on, I'd say it's at
best deprecated.

I'm sorry to repeat myself, but I think it's an important enough point that
it can't be repeated enough: deprecated (by Microsoft), maybe even legacy,
but most certainly not obsolete. It's still *the* most widely supported NIC
on the planet by drivers, and the most cloned NIC in in the history of
mankind.

</soapbox>

/Mike