Subject: Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
From: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>
To: Willy Tarreau <willy@w.ods.org>
Cc: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>, Tim Bird <tim.bird@am.sony.com>,
       Dave Airlie <airlied@gmail.com>, arjan@infradead.org,
       andrew@walrond.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
In-Reply-To: <20051206060734.GB7096@alpha.home.local>
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	 <4394DA1D.3090007@am.sony.com> <20051206040820.GB26602@kroah.com>
	 <20051206060734.GB7096@alpha.home.local>
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Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 08:13:10 +0000
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On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 07:07 +0100, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> Most of those small companies who propose a Linux driver simply start
> by paying a student during summer for porting their
> windows/sco/whatever driver to linux. They think the job is done when
> he leaves. Unfortunately, they receive complaints 3 months later from
> users because the driver is broken and does not build. They don't have
> the resources to keep a permanent developer on it, and they quickly
> understand that Linux is just a "geek OS" and that it's the last time
> they release any driver.

If they hired someone who did a _proper_ job -- writing a fully portable
and maintainable driver which got merged into Linus' kernel, then this
scenario doesn't make much sense. In-kernel code does generally get
maintained as interfaces change.

Of course, maintaining a driver _outside_ the kernel tree is a
never-ending task -- but why would anybody ever want to do that?

-- 
dwmw2


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