It's better than a binary only driver..

Recently, Greg K.H. made an offer to write free linux kernel drivers to any company that will provide him with docs to their hardware. Some BSD folks had a problem with Greg making this offer to people who would only give up their docs if the developer signed an NDA. Theo de Raadt chimed in declaring that "it is a fucking farce", which is his usual way. As far as they are concerned, an open source driver without docs is not open at all. That may be so, but I still think having source code.. any source code.. which actually works, is better than having no docs or source code.

It would be nice if companies would hand over docs without an NDA.. that is certainly preferable for everyone.. but some of them just won't, and getting them to hand over docs under an NDA with the ok for someone to write a free driver (be it GPL or BSD licensed) - that's something and it shouldn't be ignored.

Now, if companies start doing this and drivers start showing up as GPL, but without the documentation, you guys can go ask the companies for the docs yourself (with or without NDA) and make your own driver using the GPL driver as a reference implementation.. or you can reverse engineer the GPL driver, it's certainly a hell of a lot easier than trying to reverse engineer a binary driver isn't it?

I'm sure Greg and his merry band will be pressing for docs without NDA, but in the event that an NDA is the only way forward, it's certainly better than no driver at all.

Finally, just let me say, docs are not the be all of driver development. Great to have them, but docs can be wrong and you won't have any idea until you implement them. At least a driver, you can test. So unless you intend to start asking hardware companies for their VHDL, you're better off having a working source code driver to confirm the docs (if you can get em) are accurate.

Comments

  1. jf2:34 PM

    re: apple

    I understand that, and I've interviewed and been hired by many of the large players in the industry in the US, it was mainly their overall demeanor that I found inflammatory- being told 'well while i can understand that you *supposedly* do this for a living, i was asking for a *real* answer' just put me over the top, between that, their half-duplex phone, and their telling me that priv seperation is wrong I just finally said screw it, I'm not this desperate for a job.

    FYI as for a little background on me, im currently employed as a researcher for the company you mentioned in your comment to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Astermeds8:10 PM

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