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Update On Free Linux Driver Development
Remember the offer Greg Kroah-Hartman made earlier this year, to get Linux drivers written for free for any company that wanted them? Now an anonymous reader points us to an article up on linuxworld with an update to this program. Greg K-H, who leads the development of several kernel subsystems including USB and PCI, admits that the January offer was a bit of "marketing hype" — but says it has brought companies and developers together anyway. Twelve companies have said "yes please," one driver is already in the kernel, and five more are in the pipeline.
Why are drivers cluttering up the kernel? Doesn't that mean that the kernel is ever-increasing in size and complexity as more drivers are added to the kernel? Two things that a reliable kernel should avoid?
I don't know.. maybe people who value their freedom?
RMS is that you? or are you just another zealot who believes not having the gpl on my mp3 player will steal my babies and put me in jail?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
What Linux really needs is a Stable Binary API so that hardware manfacturers can release drivers that work with the current kernel and know they will work from now for the life of that hardware. At the very least there should be a stable way to interact with the kernel that does not change in minor version revisions (ie - Stable API for entire 2.6 branch).
Rather than trying to force private businesses to play by the same rules as free kernel maintainers there should be an acknowledgement that some people may have a different agenda (maximise revenues in this case) and they should not be forced into adopting an approach that is entirely alien to them.
This is the main thing holding back linux from supporting a great deal of the hardware that is currently supported by Windows, OSX or BSD.
Without this stability manufacturers are still scared of saying they support linux, as they know the same piece of hardware may not support linux in 10 days time when the kernel is "tweaked". This creates all sorts of legal problems which alot of hardware manufacturers are scared of. It is easier to say they do not support Linux on the box as a disclaimer.
Another problem is that alot of hardware manufacturers do not want to release the exact technical specs of what the sell in case they competitors use them to create compatible products which could utilise their drivers. This leaves them having to compete with a product that has far lower R&D costs.
Hopefully Greg KH and Linus will realise this one day but until then we are stuck with waiting 3 years after a piece of hardware was released for someone in the community to reverse engineer the windows driver and create their (our) own.
The current approach might well produce a better quality driver (and kernel) but it is far to slow. Who wants to spend several hundred pounds on new hardware only to find it is obsolete before the linux kernel supports it.
I dont read