Kendall> Binary portable drivers are important to ensure compatibility
Kendall> between builds of the Linux kernel. If you don't have some
Kendall> kind of binary driver mechanism, regression tests and well
Kendall> designed device driver API's, every time you recompile the
Kendall> Linux kernel you may well introduce new problems that need to
Kendall> be fixed.
Kendall> I am however not sure it is worth continuing to argue this
Kendall> anymore, because I don't think anyone developing for the
Kendall> Linux kernel really understand these issues. Everyone seems
Kendall> to keep regurgitating the classic reasons for advocating Open
Kendall> Source, instead of understanding that I am talking about
Kendall> methodologies to help solve compatibility problems with the
Kendall> existing Open Source drivers.
Open source drivers are important to ensure compatibility between
builds of the Linux kernel (whoops does that look like remarkably
similar to your own argument) since we thereby are sure that API
changes gets noticed and fixed in drivers actually being used.
Binary only modules on the other hand are a major problem because
vendors are almost always extremely slow in updating their code thus
you end up kludging old kernels in order to use a particular binary
module. A good example here is AFS from Transarc, though they seem to
have gotten better. Of course you just claim that we should just set
an API in stone and stick to that, but that doesn't work, sometimes we
_have_ to change the API to solve a bug.
Sorry but your two weeks study of the Linux development model doesn't
seem to have tought you much. So far all I can see is that your are
turning it into insulting people because you don't seem to have an
argument that can convince them.
Jes
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