On 2011-09-26, Michael Mol <mike...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 3:37 PM, pk <pete...@coolmail.se> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Happened upon this interview with Linus Torvalds that some of you might >> find interesting (if you haven't seen it already): >> >> http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature-Articles/Linus-Torvalds-s-Lessons-on-Software-Development-Management/ba-p/440 > > Yeah, I just saw that. Admittedly, when I saw this section: > > --begin-section-- [...] > Breaking the user experience in order to ???fix??? something > is a totally broken concept; you cannot do it.
That's hilarious. The Linux developers are _constantly_ changing APIs in ways that break existing device driver code. There are repeatedly wholesale re-designs of some APIs that happen between minor versions of a supposedly "stable" kernel. We have to touch our NetBSD and FreeBSD drivers maybe once every 3-4 years. Often our Linux drivers have to be updated every 3-4 _months_ to keep up with changes in the kernel that break things. I suppose one could try to claim that people who ship Linux drivers for their hardware aren't "users" of the kernel, and therefore our dealing with such breakage isn't a "user experience". -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! Everybody is going at somewhere!! It's probably gmail.com a garage sale or a disaster Movie!!