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How will it kill the kernel? A stable abi would bring in better driver support which would bring in more Linux users.

Why are you so worried anyways? The Linux desktop has been in a coma for over 10 years, I'm not sure why you are so concerned with death when desktop Linux just sits there and drools on itself.

I'm really gonna laugh if an alternative like Haiku comes along with a stable abi and trumps Linux on the desktop. Defenders like you will have helped save desktop Linux from its own success. "

Who said Desktop Linux? I said Linux, the kernel itself, meaning all Linux.

If Haiku beats Linux on the desktop I will applaud. Free is Free. But, Haiku won't win because of its stable driver interface. It will win because of consistency, integration, etc, etc.. Things users actually see. If there were one desktop and one look and feel on Linux, with a single target for the menu, file locations, etc, etc then Linux would be having an easier time, too.

Desktop Linux has many, many problems that need solutions in order for it to succeed. A stable driver ABI is not essential and won't make a significant difference in user experience.

The no stable driver ABI is brought up again and again as the reason that Linux is not succeeding on the desktop. However the people who make this argument fail to give any evidence that this is what is holding linux back. I've yet to see any company saying that the driver ABI is a serious problem for them. To the contrary the NVidia guys said in a recent interview that it's not much of a problem, and they are probably the most relevant provider of closed source drivers for linux. Similarly if the driver ABI is the main thing holding linux back, how come that Opensolaris hasn't overtaken Linux in popularity and why is it that Opensolaris has a lot less hardware support than Linux? (Note I'm not criticising Solaris, I think more open OS are always good).

I've yet to see these two questions being answered.

The evidence is staring you in the face, but you don't want to hear it. Why can't the vast majority of distros do something as simple as play DVDs or Blu-Rays without being sued? This is 2009, for chrissakes. How can you possibly call that success?

The primary reason for this failure is the insistence of Linux zealots on having source code for anything they ship. Constantly shifting the ABIs isn't rational, from a development perspective. People claim they want "flexibility", but that's a red herring. What these same folks really want is to create a binary incompatibility such that you would HAVE to have the source code and compile the drivers with that specific version of the kernel in order to have a prayer of working.

Hardware OEMs aren't going to disclose all of their secret sauce to open source developers. Just as they won't share all of their IP with Microsoft. It's not a trust or fairness issue. It's a trade secret and patent issue. If you give away your technological advantages to your competitors, you cease to offer differentiation -- and you die as a commercial entity. Your competitors can leverage and replicate your research without putting in the same level of investment. You know, I'm surprised that so many people in the FOSS community are either blissfully unaware of the realities of this situation -- or simply don't care. Either way, you're shooting yourselves in the foot. It's like you're afraid of success or something, even when people explain step-by-step how you can win.

As for me, I don't care, one way or another. I write commercial software for a living, and the fact of the matter is that, if you guys fail to solve this problem, it just means more business for me. So, by all means continue to ignore what I'm saying. Enrich me, please.



First, OpenSolaris hasn't been open very long. Linux has had more than a decade headstart, and being first means a lot. Some people refer to this as First Mover Advantage. It takes time to write drivers, and there has to be sufficient interest and motivation to target any OS. Second, no slight to OpenSolaris (it's a good OS), but it was derived from Sun's relatively expensive workstation and server OS codebase which didn't use horizontal market hardware. Somebody has to write those drivers. Comparing one form of failure against another is counterproductive.

Edited 2009-11-08 04:46 UTC