"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
What documents? I agree with you in principle, but in practice these hardware vendors have to be so quick to market that there isn't usually ANY natural language documentation.
As Linus has said many times, the source code is the only valid documentation. Any print documentation is inherently out-of-date and/or inaccurate--at least in the commodity space.
That's why many hardware vendors will choose the part of the offer where they supply an engineer's email address. "Well, I don't know how that register works, but I do know that we set it to 0xFFFFFFFF in our Windows driver."
Edited 2007-01-30 22:03
Member since:2005-10-13
What documents? I agree with you in principle, but in practice these hardware vendors have to be so quick to market that there isn't usually ANY natural language documentation.
The programmers in the company that wrote the Windows driver almost certainly had some kind of documentation - it's unlikely they wanted a hardware engineer on the phone with those guys practically 24/7. It may be incomplete or outdated, but it would at least be a good starting point.
Member since:
2005-07-06
The spec might not be available as a separate document but be part of vendor internal documentation describing other details of the device.
Exactly, and it's easier to just give the developer access to those documents, rather than having someone write a spec. Or have him go through the internal documentation, removing the parts the company don't want public. It's both a costly process for the company. And it's likely the person(s) responsible will err on the caseous side and remove too much, making the spec lacking.
Using a NDA makes more sense not only from a busness and economical point of view, but also from an engineering viepoint.
Edited 2007-01-30 19:26