On Jan 23, 2008 11:08 PM, Greg KH <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In the end, the development time for a driver developer for Linux is > less than that of other operating systems as the maintaince is done for > them for all future versions, and the ammount of code they have to write > in the first place is smaller.
API tweaking might be done for you automatically, but certainly _not_ maintenance or testing. Or don't tell me you have every piece of hardware supported by Linux available and that you actually do test if you broke them :) So most certainly maintenance is not done. And actually, most of the testing effort done against the original driver was just rendered useless with the API tweak. > > > This also provides a more secure, and better product for the user in the > > > end. They never need to worry about external drivers, and everything > > > "just works" for them automatically. > > > > As I told you before, this is a nice idea but 'in real life' > > it's load of bollocks :). If we don't make it possible for > > users to install 'out-of-tree' drivers (and just drivers, > > nothing else) they are forced to do major kernel update > > after each new gadget bought. And that, in real life terms, > > means totally new OS to install. Plug and play, you say? > > No, not at all. You should be able to drop in a new kernel just fine, > with only minor package updates at times. Joe Random Hacker can, regular user can't. That, and I don't think SUSE would be too happy supporting 2.6.23.14 for SLED10 either. Andreas, would you be happy with it :) ? > As proof that this works, I was just talking with a very large company > that relies on Linux last week. They use RHEL 3 on almost all of their > systems. But as RHEL 3 is 2.4 based, and doesn't support a lot of new > hardware, and has lots of other issues, they just drop in the latest > 2.6 kernel on their own, and their developers never even notice the > difference, except that their machines work better. > > So, in the "real life" it isn't a load of bollocks, sorry :) OK, try asking your auntie to do the same thing ;) Yeah, it's a piece of software. Given enough time and money anything can be done for it. But whether or not it's feasible is another thing. > > IMHO the whole concept of providing complete kernel in one > > huge blob is flawed. Optimal case would be to break it into > > pieces with no dependencies. > > I'd be interested in seeing your patches to attempt such a thing. With current design this would probably be impossible :/ -- // Janne -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
