Re: FW: press release - new network driver architecture

[david parsons]

In article <[e-mail]>,
Alan Cox  <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> Hardware vendors can not expect users to know about compiling.
>> It would be very dangerous to have hardware vendors supplying
>> whole kernel upgrades, but what else can they do?
>
>Provide source code and work with the community as well as with 
>vendors.

    That's not the problem.  Even if Linus pulled the plug on the
    GPL exception for drivers, being able to install binary drivers
    (AND having a published binary interface) makes things a lot
    easier for distributions and driver writers.

|From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[e-mail]>
|
|As far as generalizing it for other drivers, nope no one has done that
|yet.  It would be nice to get support into the mainline Linux kernel,
|though, so it didn't require quite as much hacking.  Right now there's a
|lot of adjustments that have to be made from time-to-time to deal with
|changes on the kernel build procedure, and (worse of all)
|distribution-specific hacks to kernel build procedure, especially to
|deal with modversions and generating multiple different kernels with
|different configurations from the same build tree.
|  .
|  .
|  .
|P.S.  To be fair, it's not just Mandrake which does this.  Red Hat does
|this as well, and I cursed long and loud when I first had to deal with
|it.  It's just that there are enough Red Hat boxes that I had to support
|them, and it was a lot easier since I had Red Hat systems easily within
|reach, even though I normally don't use their stock kernels.  

    If weeding out all the little distributions and the vendors who
    don't have the resources to pay staff to keep their drivers up to
    date is considered to be a good thing (and I'm including Mandrake as
    a little distribution), then I can see nothing wrong with the
    current scheme.   But if that's not the case, well, having the
    source available is not a case of the code fairy coming down and
    handing out an "avoid good software design free" card.

                  ____
    david parsons \bi/ Sigh.
                   \/