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Linux Kernel To Have Stable Userspace Drive
liquidat writes "Linus Torvalds has included patches into the mainline tree which implement a stable userspace driver API into the Linux kernel. The stable driver API was already announced a year ago by Greg Kroah-Hartman. The last patch to Linus' tree included the new API elements. The idea is to make life easier for driver developers: 'This interface allows the ability to write the majority of a driver in userspace with only a very small shell of a driver in the kernel itself. It uses a char device and sysfs to interact with a userspace process to process interrupts and control memory accesses.'"
Perhaps in ten years time Linux will be a microkernel
http://michaelsmith.id.au
no one wants the driver. what the developers what is documentation for the connectors to the motherboard. surely this should be a legal requirement for the manufacturer anyway. i would regard it as the minimal acceptable documentation for the product. it is, after all, my computer the hardware will be attached to.
i would personally like to see all pieces of hardware sold with schematics for the hardware. with other products, like cars, this is trivial anyway--anybody can open up the car and see what bit goes where. with computer hardware, because of things like microcode, this is impossible.
and as for intellectual property. what strikes me is how this phrase is always used to protect the financial interests of a company against the greater good for society and the individual. if someone would instead be honest and say "companies are allowed to require society to install software (which does what exactly?) and use a particular operating system if the user wants to use their hardware, so ensuring (at the least) that the product will soon be unusable" then i'd have less against the people who champion this position
in the best case, this is built-in obsolescence. one thing i find repugnant is the attitude that it is morally okay to force society into this position.