My latest Linux Journal arrived this morning (funny how its still October and the November edition has arrived fronm the US).
Probably not many of us are likely to take a huge interest in the inner workings of the kernel development process, we just want the thing to work with our latest SATA drives, tv tuners, usb thumb drives, 3d wizzy graphics cards and digital cameras. However this article by kernel guru Greg Kroah-Hartman is quite short but very interesting in terms of the pace and style of kernel development. Its well worth a read. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7732 The one thing that jumped to my attention was this: > Quicker development ensures that the in-kernel API will change > constantly. This always has been the case for Linux, but now it is even > more pronounced. Thus, any kernel modules that are not kept in the main > kernel.org tree quickly will stop working. It is essential that these > modules be added to the main kernel tree. That way, any API changes also > are made to the affected modules, and all users benefit from the added > features these modules provide. What this essentially means is that third party kernel modules (whether open source or proprietary) will quickly become outdated. The impact for owners of winmodems and other such dodgy (from a freedom point of view) hardware is pretty clear. So get out there and support hardware vendors that provide free and open drivers and/or are prepared to have their drivers incorporated into the kernel. Explain your choices to the retailers you frequent. If enough people say "I'm not buying anything that doesn't have a driver in the kernel, or capable of being incorporated in the kernel" then the retailers will have to make a choice as to whether they want your business or not! -- Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
