Re: Porting Linux to a new architecture

Snow Cat (snowcat@math.csufresno.edu)
Sun, 24 Mar 1996 19:24:15 -0800 (PST)

David S. Miller once wrote:
>
> The only way out of "this stage" is to sit and stare at the code for a
> couple weeks. You are cheating yourself and will be in for a lot of
> trouble if you rely on a documentation of the kernel itself to write
> code to plug into it. This especially goes for new architecture
> support, there are many interdependancies or weird quirks that you
> just "have to experience" in the Linux kernel.
>
> I'm biases as I'm against any attempt to document a moving target like
> the Linux kernel.
>

I think this approach is likely to discourage a lot of useful Linux projects.
If Linux doesn't have good documentation, people with good knowledge of a
particular piece of hardware or a new network algorithm but no prior
experience with Linux kernel are likely to apply their knowledge to some
other platform.

Indeed, many other OS'es don't come with source code, but still allow
independant developers to write drivers. We shouldn't make Linux less
programmer-friendly than Windows! If there are so many interdependancies
and weird quarks, it's a good time to get rid of some of them :)

-- 
     Snow ^oo^ Cat <snowcat@math.CSUFresno.EDU>
      _  ->  <-    aka Oleg Kibirev <oleg@math.CSUFresno.EDU>
  ___(_)  _ _)_    
 /            _)   finger oleg@math.math.CSUFresno.EDU for PGP public key
 \_.-._
       |___/	Purr!