Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 23 Sep 1999 09:12:54 +0200 | From | Werner Almesberger <> | Subject | Re: [Q]: Linux and real device drivers |
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David Hinds wrote: > It is easier to maintain unmaintained drivers when they are in the > kernel tree.
It actually works both ways: a feature your driver depends on is much more likely to survive if its use is plainly visible via grep than if that driver is only known to those who use it.
Another advantage is education: whenever I need to touch areas of the kernel I haven't touched before or not for a long time, I look at what other code in those areas does. If the most actively maintained drivers are maintained outside of the kernel tree, it will be hard to find good examples for new or changed functionality. (This gets particularly bad if I need to decide between competing features, e.g. the various list handlnig functions. Getting drivers from a single author may be quite misleading in this case.)
The main problem I perceive with drivers in the mainstream kernel tree is that changes may happen without the respective maintainer knowing why. Maybe it would be good if people get into the habit of marking changes they make to other people's code with a short comment. Disadvantage: the original maintainer has to issue a patch every once in a while just to remove the markings, increasing the overall patch load.
> The strategy of putting all device drivers in the kernel tree is > fundamentally unscalable.
Unfortunately, yes.
- Werner
-- _________________________________________________________________________ / Werner Almesberger, ICA, EPFL, CH werner.almesberger@ica.epfl.ch / /_IN_R_131__Tel_+41_21_693_6621__Fax_+41_21_693_6610_____________________/
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