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Should Linux Have a Binary Kernel Driver Layer?

Posted by Zonk on from the abstraction dept.

zerojoker writes "The discussion is not new but was heated up by a blog entry from Greg Kroah-Hartman: Three OSDL Japan members, namely Fujitsu, NEC and Hitachi are pushing for a stable Kernel driver layer/API, so that driver developers wouldn't need to put their drivers into the main kernel tree. GKH has several points against such an idea." What do you think?

5 of 944 comments (clear)

  1. No Thanks! by Shads · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No thanks, this is just a great way to promote closed source inside the linux kernel and to make debugging problems totally impossible.

    --
    Shadus
  2. Solves the reason why I gave up Linux by s20451 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I gave up Linux mostly because I was tired of getting punished for having new hardware, which is often unsupported. Especially on laptops.

    If you don't force the manufacturers to include their driver source in the kernel, you might get them to release actual drivers for their new hardware.

    --
    Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
  3. Re:Excellent suggestion! by IAmTheDave · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Having a kernel API for drivers allows developers to stay away from the mainstream kernel. This will enhance the stability of the kernel in general and also allow hardware vendors to support Linux with less effort.

    I am not a linux contributor, but I would think you'd kinda want to guard access to the kernel kinda closely. I mean, sure, anyone can fork it or grab a copy to putz around with, but contributing back into the kernel - that's gotta be just about as stable as a piece of code can be.

    Despite some loss in efficiency, I've always been an advocate of abstracted access. To many of the pieces of software we write at my job do we add a logical API, so that we don't always have to open the main code branch every time we want to add a feature.

    Driver developers hardly equal kernel developers. Keeping the two logically seperated makes sense - not to mention that driver developers are hardly the only ones that would benefit from this API.

    --
    Excuse my speling.
    Making The Bar Project
  4. Re:Oh, I'm all for it. by shadowmas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "....if a vendor doesn't bother to certify the driver (it's not that expensive after all) it's a good indication that they might not care about driver improvement as well...."

    or maybe it improves that its drivers so frequently that it cant keep trying to certify it every single time?

  5. Re:*I* have an idea! by Chuckstar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know you're joking, but how about this for an idea:

    A hybrid kernel. Open source drivers are compiled into the kernel. There is a API for closed-source drivers to run in user-space.

    Does not violate GPL.
    Little compromise to stability.
    Developers who only want to do closed-source drivers can do so.
    Developers have incentive to open source their drivers in order to have better performance and take advantage of newer kernel features (the internal APIs are updated with the kernel, the external APIs stay fixed and fall behind the feature curve).

    Win.
    Win.
    Win.

    Unless its just a philosophical question, in which case ... rant away open source crazies. ;)