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The 2.7 Kernel: Back To The Future For Linux
Anonymous Coward writes "Now that the Linux 2.6 kernel has been released and is being worked into distributions, many in the open-source community are turning their attention to the next development and test kernel, known as the 2.7 tree. To get an early glimpse at some of the thinking going into the next kernel, key vendors that aid in shaping the Linux kernel helped eWEEK last week put together a long-range wish list for 2.7."
It would be great to have more drivers for Linux, but a compatibility driver for Windows drivers would be such an incomplete, dirty, buggy kludge that you would wish you had never thought of it. For one, I believe that much of the Windows driver API is an industry secret. Second, people won't write Linux drivers anymore, and requests for native drivers will be responded with "You can just use the Windows drivers!" Third, Linux and Windows have very different driver models, meaning incompatibility and having to code it in bug-for-bug. Plus, how can you ensure that the Windows drivers won't trample over the Linux ones, or are you going to isolate them, reducing their effectiveness?
"Now, maybe you don't use MPlayer (and the other "native" driver apps) but there are a hell of a lot of us that do and love it."
The reason MPlayer et al. can use Windows drivers (honestly, I've never tried it) because all they are are codecs, which seem to have a well defined and fairly open API (XviD has a Windows codec "driver", I believe) and don't depend on too much. However, an operating system kernel is not the place for untrusted code that depends on a lot of stuff working at the right time.