From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752327AbWJOBvE (ORCPT ); Sat, 14 Oct 2006 21:51:04 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752315AbWJOBvE (ORCPT ); Sat, 14 Oct 2006 21:51:04 -0400 Received: from smtp.bulldogdsl.com ([212.158.248.8]:8978 "EHLO mcr-smtp-002.bulldogdsl.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752327AbWJOBvC (ORCPT ); Sat, 14 Oct 2006 21:51:02 -0400 X-Spam-Abuse: Please report all spam/abuse matters to abuse@bulldogdsl.com From: Alistair John Strachan To: Kevin K Subject: Re: Driver model.. expel legacy drivers? Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 02:51:04 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5 Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <4530570B.7030500@comcast.net> <45317814.8000709@comcast.net> <73CDF2F1-EC0A-431D-9B29-10251FAD21B7@sbcglobal.net> In-Reply-To: <73CDF2F1-EC0A-431D-9B29-10251FAD21B7@sbcglobal.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200610150251.04147.s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sunday 15 October 2006 02:24, Kevin K wrote: > On Oct 14, 2006, at 6:51 PM, John Richard Moser wrote: > >> Microsoft are also being very helpful. They are making it harder and > >> harder for people to use drivers not microsoft-signed which in turns > >> pushes up costs for development and as a result encourages more > >> standardization of driver interfaces to take place. > > > > huh? > > My assumption is that vendors may make fewer gratuitious interface > changes so the hardware is more likely to work with existing, signed, > drivers. If changes aren't made, existing Linux drivers are more > likely to work with new revisions of hardware. > > My experience in the past for hardware, such as USB based flash > memory readers, is that when they came out you seemed to always need > a proprietary driver, and Linux drivers needed hints for different > readers. It seems better these days, with things like USB keys > generally working in both Windows and relatively modern distributions > without much effort. Alan's talking about standards like AHCI, {U,O,E}HCI, AC'97, all standards for silicon that make writing generic drivers possible. I'm patiently waiting for an equivalent for wireless, or graphics (hopefully not another VESA).. -- Cheers, Alistair. Final year Computer Science undergraduate. 1F2 55 South Clerk Street, Edinburgh, UK.