As usual: just keep this part well-separated. If you need 100% portability then
use only interfaces declared in mandatory part of POSIX without any extensions.
P.S. If you ask not about portability between different OS but between different
versions of kernel then answer is following: this is EXACTLY problem which
prevent inclusions of such things in mainstream kernel :-)) If raw device IO
is SO important for you and you could mantain compatibility yourself then live
with this. If not then this question was not important for you in first
place :-)) YOU need such interface => YOU should mantain it. Of course if more
then one team needed it they could team up (Sybase and Informix will need this
as well I suppose :-) and if this will ne needed by majority of users in some
time in the future this will be included in mainstream kernel anyway. Just like
fbcon :-) Or modular sound :-) This is how distributed development of kernel
works: if thing is not "obviously right" then it will exist outside of
mainstream kernel for some time. It it's REALLY needed thing it will be
included in mainstream kernel eventually. It necessity of it was just pure
imagination of someone it will die (like IFS or supermount).
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