Re: Driver Model

[Robert Love]

On Tue, 2003-09-02 at 17:44, James Clark wrote:

> Would a more rigid 'plugin' interface and the concequent move from mainly 
> 'source' modules to binary 'plugins' (still with source-code available for 
> all to see) mean that (a) Kernel was smaller (2) Had to be 
> released/recompiled less (4) Was EVEN more stable and (4) 'plugins' were more 
> portable across releases and easier to install ?

I do not think any of these implications are true, except (4).

A stable driver API would certainly imply (4).  But I see no relation to
(a) -- actually, an API would bring complications and thus bloat, if
anything.  I see no relation to (2).  And (3) just seems like a wild
guess.

I agree that (4) would be a good thing.  The problem is, its really not
what we have here today and not what any of the kernel developers want. 
95% of the drivers (and 100% of those that the kernel developers use)
_are_ source-based and in the tree, so why have a stable API for them?

In other words, yes, (4) is nice.  But not that nice, as a stable API
and driver interface implies a lot of other things that are not
necessarily good.

On the bright side, I do think that we will see a much more stable API
in 2.6.  2.4.n for n after Marcelo took over has also been stable.

	Robert Love


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