On Tue, 2006-01-24 at 04:39 +0200, Sergei Steshenko wrote: > Regarding > > " > kernel > developers made it clear that the days of them tolerating proprietary > drivers are numbered. > " > > I am sorry I do not have time at the moment to try XEN (I've already > expressed this idea). > > The idea is: > > 1) in a user machine there will be at least two kernels running > - the main one, which will also be the most up to date one, and the guest > one; > > 2) the main kernel will be configured in a manner NOT to deal with > proprietary driver WiFi card, proprietary driver sound card, etc; > > 3) the guest kernel will be of the well tested older version with which > the proprietary driver WiFi card, proprietary driver sound card, etc. > did and do work, and this older guest kernel will take care of the > proprietary driver hardware; > > 4) interaction between the two kernels is as easy as between two > computers on network, i.e. the guest kernel can share its WiFi > connection with the main kernel, sound can be streamed to the guest kernel, > etc. > > As I said earlier, if I succeed in achieving this, this will be the > proof of possibility of absolutely stable ABI - the older guest kernel's > ABI will be the one. >
It still seems like a lot less work to just make the kernel driver a thin layer over the hardware and put all the proprietary stuff in userspace. The kernel developers will guarantee that the API exported to userspace remains stable and maintain the kernel side of the driver so the vendor does not have to. The problem is some vendors insist that even the elementary information about their devices needed to write this thin HAL, like which register does what and how to enable interrupts, must be treated as a trade secret. Those vendors will eventually have to choose between this mindset and having their hardware supported. Lee ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=103432&bid=230486&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
