Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S265618AbTIDWTi (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Sep 2003 18:19:38 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S265615AbTIDWTi (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Sep 2003 18:19:38 -0400 Received: from mail.jlokier.co.uk ([81.29.64.88]:9613 "EHLO mail.jlokier.co.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S265618AbTIDWTd (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Sep 2003 18:19:33 -0400 Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 23:19:24 +0100 From: Jamie Lokier To: James Clark Cc: Rik van Riel , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Driver Model 2 Proposal - Linux Kernel Performance v Usability Message-ID: <20030904221924.GK31590@mail.jlokier.co.uk> References: <200309042212.25052.jimwclark@ntlworld.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200309042212.25052.jimwclark@ntlworld.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1379 Lines: 35 James Clark wrote: > Why would binary drivers be any harder to debug than the existing binary > kernel. If you want to debug something use the source code. My proposal > doesn't remove the need for quality public source code but it does isolate > the kernel components and allow for 'plugin' use on different kernels both > old and new. Your first statement doesn't make sense. We don't debug binary kernels by themselves - we debug them with source. Binary drivers that come without source are almost impossible to debug. If we can't debug the drivers, we'll soon have a Linux community that's full of broken drivers. If broken binary-only drivers becomes significant for many users, Linux will become much less fun - and it may harm its adoption and improvment. Some would say the problem of binary-only drivers is already significantly harming the development process: think of the people running 2.4-only drivers who cannot be involved in 2.6 testing or development. Also the rate at which new open source drivers are produced will decrease, because there will be less useful source for authors to learn from. -- Jamie - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/