Free Linux Kernel Driver Development FAQ

schwaang writes "The recent announcement by Linux Kernel Developer Greg Kroah-Hartman that 'the Linux kernel community is offering all companies free Linux driver development' seems to have stirred up some interest as well as some questions — see the Slashdot discussion about the announcement. Greg K-H addresses some of the questions raised here, and raises a few more, in a new Free Linux Driver Development FAQ on his blog. An excerpt: 'Q: Are companies really going to do this? A: Yes, already we have received a number of serious queries from companies about producing Linux drivers for their devices. More information will be available later when details are firmed up."

Comments

Cirrus Logic doesn't appreciate help

[ClaesMogren]

Unfortunately a lot of companies seem totally unable to see the benefits of external contributors. They don't even see the point in getting drivers into the mainline kernel. Just take a look at this response from Cirrus Logic regarding their ep93xx boards:

http://www.freelists.org/archives/linux-cirrus/02- 2007/msg00026.html/

Looks like the in house coding team was bummed that Lennert Buytenhek did a better job on the port then their whole team. Ridiculous response! /C.M

Re:how do these developers get paid?

[TheRaven64]

Many of them are paid by distributions. Novell and RedHat, for example, make money buy selling support for Linux. The more hardware their distribution supports, the easier it is to sell. Getting good drivers in the upstream tree is the easiest way of doing this, so they pay kernel developers. If you are able to write kernel code and interested in doing it for a living, I would suggest you send your CV off to the big distros (and possibly IBM) and ask if they have any openings.

You may also be able to get some short-term work from companies wanting to switch existing infrastructure to Linux and needing drivers for existing hardware, although this is likely to be contingent on your acquiring the device specs first.