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    SubjectRe: Please release a stable kernel Linux 3.0
    > Fair enough:
    > http://www.tahomatech.com/downloads/drivers/linux_2.6/pci/x86/compressed_tarfiles/
    > or for your browsing pleasure:
    > http://www.tahomatech.com/downloads/drivers/linux_2.6/pci/x86/files/
    >
    > But I really don't see much hope :( Coding style, masses of ioctls,
    > build and install technique, limited user base, etc, etc, etc... Most
    > of the above to keep API compatibility with other OS/older drivers -
    > back to SunOS 4.1.3. (BTW, it does seem to work...)

    Its small, its relatively sanely structured and its not that bad
    stylewise. Nothing a few seds, an indent and a polish wouldn't cure. As
    to the ioctls - its a specialised driver for specialised purposes so the
    ioctls are not IMHO an issue beyond worrying about compat_ and if you
    want compat_ interfaces for them or not.

    > And I probably have the license wrong. The code has always been in
    > the public domain. (Advice welcome...)

    Public domain is GPL compatible.

    > My (mild) beef is more like what I take to be Al's point: it feels like
    > there is a kind of hostility toward out-of-tree maintainers. Why not

    Some of that comes about because a lot of them are out of tree
    maintaining non-free stuff, shipping binary products - often entirely
    binary without a Linux or GPL label - until the man in black catches them
    and sues them in Germany.

    > encourage _all_ of us who are beavering away at open-source code? My
    > stuff doesn't belong in mainline, but it _is_ open, and in some minor
    > way allows more folks to run Linux.

    Quite honestly your stuff is *less* obscure than some of the hardware we
    have in-tree drivers for, and rather cleaner.

    > A cleaned-up, consistent, and out-of-tree friendly way of handling API
    > changes might help us all.

    The problem is that its very impractical. If I change a kernel API I fix
    up the in tree users and test those I can, that's "accepted practice" -
    you make mess doing a job you clean it up. I can't do that for out of
    tree code because its out of tree.
    -
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