Planning ahead

Planning ahead

Posted Apr 21, 2006 0:08 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: The interface IS the source code by elanthis
Parent article: Some notes on Linux and free drivers

How long do you think it takes to bring a product to market? Or, once it is announced (if they don't want to lose the element of surprise), to distribute it in quantity? If it's something like six months, then the manufacturer should have time to submit their driver to lkml and have support in the kernel, in time for the next release of your favorite distro.

Even if the window is just one or two months, they would have time to submit their code to kernel developers and have it in the next kernel release, so that you could just download the kernel in source form and compile it yourself.

Hardware manufacturers have a responsibility to their users, so this process should not be too much of a burden. Certainly less than maintaining binary drivers themselves.

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