"Yes, that's right, the Linux kernel community is offering all companies free Linux driver development. No longer do you have to suffer through all of the different examples in the Linux Device Driver Kit, or pick through the thousands of example drivers in the Linux kernel source tree trying to determine which one is the closest to what you need to do. All that is needed is some kind of specification that describes how your device works, or the email address of an engineer that is willing to answer questions every once in a while. A few sample devices might be good to have so that debugging doesn't have to be done by email, but if necessary, that can be done."
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Member since:2005-07-08
I think the important part here is that the Linux kernel community is providing options in a language that the hardware vendors can understand. They aren't making demands, they are making an offer that's hard to turn down.
They've effectively turned the issue on it's head. "We will supply kernel engineers to build your driver at no direct cost to you if you merely cooperate." Not "cooperate or we won't be able to make a driver."
Other than a formal statement expressing the kernel community's willingness to develop (open source) drivers with NDA specifications (which has been a prevailing sentiment for some time), there is nothing effectively new here. The kernel community has always been willing to develop drivers and maintain them in-tree with the rest of the kernel. But now they've restated their intentions in clear and direct language.
When put this way, it seems like an offer you can't refuse. For any hardware vendor that doesn't have a Linux driver, excuses have become nearly impossible to imagine. This statement makes the issue of Linux driver support (and continued maintenance thereof) an issue of dollars and cents. When the lawyers say to the CEO that they'd better avoid open source drivers to stay on the safe side of intellectual property law (because it's 100x easier for a lawyer to say no than yes), the CEO will look at the bottom line. Well, it won't cost us anything, so I say the heck with it, tell the bearded folks the specs are on the way.
Member since:2005-07-08
On the other hand, I don't believe nVidia/ATi is the target audience of this offer. These vendors have the resources to continue to wrestle with providing binary drivers for a moving target, and they might be fine with continuing this development model.
They also need to face up to the fact that the community has the resources to reverse engineer heavily demanded drivers within a reasonable time frame, even without their cooperation. The Nouveau project is projecting a stable 3D nVidia driver before the end of the year, and the early progress suggests it might be even earlier (and with possible performance advantages over the proprietary driver). If they don't cooperate, we'll eventually go over their heads and make it happen anyway.
Member since:
2005-11-23
If the hardware suppliers want driver on linux for free they should have released the spec of their hardware long time ago ...