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.'"

Comments

Re:Better drivers and more of them

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Am I missing something here? Yeah. Patents.

They are afraid that by providing documentation on interfaces, it may tip-off a patent holder to start looking for infringement where they might not otherwise have done so.

After all, when the prevailing legal advice is to actively not look for pre-existing patents, it is inevitable that companies will independently create infringing hardware. It's like we get the worst of both worlds - patents might as well be trade-secrets since reading them is a legal mine-field if you are working in the same area, but we also get government enforced monopolies that stifle competition.

At least the lawyers get paid for their contributions,
and that's all that should really matter in the end. Right?