Peter Gordon wrote:
On Fri, 2006-11-10 at 09:48 +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote:
It would be nice if everything worked out of the box, but the Linux
kernel folks have never felt bound to provide stable kernel interfaces
for drivers, leading to constant and routine need for users to source
newer versions of third party drivers (if they even exist) that have
been updated to the new interface change.
Consider: what's changed? NVidia's driver? No. Your laptop hardware? No.
What's changed is the Linux kernel interface. Thanks Linus!
Having a stable in-kernel API is complete nonsense. It would function
May I ask how many years experience you have with kernel development
of any operating system? I wrote a small real time OS in 1984, and
have developed or supported four others[*] during the years 1986 through
2002. I also have written device drivers for the same four, and led
a team of 15 engineers for 18 months doing device driver and hardware
interface/board support code. I have written the initial boot ROMs
for two boards, and helped develop same for five others.
Oddly, I don't think that having a stable API for device drivers
is complete nonsense.
If you would like to discuss this in a civil manner, and avoid
using inflammatory terms like "complete nonsense", I'd continue
to discuss this with you to find what technical objections you have.
only to harm further kernel development. The easiest way to keep your
out-of-tree driver updated to the new kernel changes is - guess what? -
Get it *into* the upstream kernel tree!
This is not necessarily legally possible, though it is the best way.
[*] Three of them are proprietary RTOSs helping people around the world
make long distance telephone calls, another is used to run high speed
printers (200+ pages per minute channelized printers).
Mike
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