Possibly offtopic : Binary only driver

Stefan Sonnenberg-Carstens ssc at coolspot.de
Sun Nov 21 11:18:03 UTC 2004


Thank you for your answer.
Ok, even if the hardware vendor decides to open the driver :
Will it be included ?
In every kernel ?
In every distribution ?
For only a few (about several thousand) users ?
Would is make a difference ?
Why is there no really *fix* api *and* abi for all kernels
2.6.x ? For example, you write a kernel driver for e.g.
Solaris 9; it will be supported all the livetime of Solaris.
I think Linux really lacks such a feature.
The main problem is to provide an easy way to distribute
such drivers.

Thanks for answering.


Am Sonntag, 21. November 2004 12:02 schrieb Arjan van de Ven:
> On Sun, 2004-11-21 at 10:56 +0100, Stefan Sonnenberg-Carstens wrote:
> > The problem I have now, that the driver needs to be
> > rebuild with every new kernel version, which is released.
> > Is there a way to avoid that ?
> > I have developed kernel drivers for Linux for 2.2.x kernels,
> > but things seem to have changed ....
>
> Note that you really should talk to your lawyers about this; it's not
> entirely clear if such non-GPL kernel components are legal or not
> (personally I don't think they are).
> For example, see the statements from Linus Torvalds on this at
> http://people.redhat.com/arjanv/COPYING.modules .
>
> I also wonder if the *driver* or the hardware has the "valuable IP" that
> needs to be protected, most of the time it's the hardware after all.
>
>
> Even if your lawyers think you're in the clear, it's a major pain. Well
> that's actually an encouragement to make driver vendors consider if the
> IP they try to protect really is worth the hassle... because  a hassle
> it is. ABI and API change with every kernel release. And lots of people
> run *lots* of different kernels, including kernels with really weird
> patchkits.




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