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SubjectRe: Binary drivers
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> Every major version has found some reason to change the driver interface.

And every version benefitted because of this. You want to stamp this out.
You want us to have DOS like cruft ? No thanks

> Examples include but are not limited to:
> 1. The routine has changed from poll() to select() between 2.0 and 2.2.
For scalability as a server.

> 2. The method for doing timeouts has changed between 2.0 and 2.2.
For performance

> 3. You no long use the same methods to copy between kernel and user between
> 2.0 and 2.2.

For much increased performance

See with binary interfaces you'd be stuck with something than ran like 1.2
or 2.0 nowdays. That would suck.

> 6. The way that PCI devices determine their memory or I/O window, and what
> element in the structure, changes between 2.2 and 2.3.

Which gives more cross platform portability.

> > The fact is that stable kernels have a fairly static driver interface,
> > which is _almost always_ source-compatible, if not binary-compatible.
>
> For the case of Linux, don't you mean _ALMOST NEVER_ in the above sentence?

He means almost always. In fact we go to great pains not to break the stable
source interface for drivers and filesystems. 2.2.0 and 2.2.14pre11 are
very very close on this. In fact I routinely get driver submissions for
2.2.5 that build in 2.2.14 unchanged.

> 1. From the corporate management point of view, driver source makes it
> easier for a competitor to reverse engineer a product or create one with a
> hardware-compatible interface. This allows the competitor to come in with a
> cheaper product because they didn't have to do any of the original R&D to
> define the interface nor develope the software to drive it. This will delay
> or prevent some companies from supporting Linux.

It's a free market. They don't have to support Linux, they dont have to
provide source. The customer is always right. Its also fairly naive to think
that it won't get reverse engineered if its annoying enough.

DVD crypto for example is highly secret and was smashed by a kid from Norway
and his pals. So a kid from Norway beat the DVD forum. You think a serious
vendor can't beat you. I doubt your driver is even hardened self modifying code
designed to beat a debugger.

> 2. I believe there are still products which depend on Trade Secrets rather
> than patents and copyrights to protect some of their intellectual property.
> There may be instances where people don't want to open source a driver

These definitely exist. However they are unusual. Some people have extremely
clever software trickery involved in making their hardware very cheap. Some
have very clever hardware stuff they don't want to reveal. They are few and
Linux is a real problem to them... Just like NT is a real problem to people
who want to patch the kernel internals.

> because of this. Does anyone know if WinModems are an instance of this?

No. The winmodem people are just vendors so lost in the world of ideas as
property they can't conceive of giving information away. There is an
approvals complexity in some countries too and other stuff. Its a complex
area.

> I do not agree with all the reasons, but that doesn't mean that other people
> don't consider them valid. Some or all of them may prevent vendors from
> supporting Linux.

Customer power will sort this out. Vendors supporting open source will do
well in the Linux market. Those not using open source will either not play
in that market or will play at a disadvantage.

I talk to lots of vendors, from all sorts of camps. Almost none of them
see it as a religious or philosophical issue. They work on the basis
of 'what is the cost from providing info' 'what do we gain in marketing,
in sales and in goodwill'. Do the sums, is it worth it. This is hard accounting
at work. Open source sells hardware to Linux people. Linux people represent
some of the highest spending computing people, they represent many of the
'early adopters' of your toy. The fact that putting the pdf of the chip docs
on the web page gets them to write drivers for you is even better in many
of their eyes.

Alan


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