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User space driversUser space driversPosted Aug 27, 2004 23:18 UTC (Fri) by simlo (subscriber, #10866)Parent article: Linux loses the Philips webcam driver are needed! Legally you can do whatever you want in user space, no need to be open source there. So if just the kernel will make a nice interface for making drivers (and filesystems, protocols etc.) run in user space we would have a nice compromise: Companies can make closed source drivers for Linux but they will not run as effecient as the open source ones running in the kernel. And not at least: Linux would probably be a lot more stable since drivers have an harder time crashing the whole system.
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User space drivers Posted Aug 28, 2004 9:04 UTC (Sat) by rakoch (guest, #4666) [Link] What you are basically saying is that Linux is obsolete ;)-Rudiger
User space drivers Posted Aug 30, 2004 15:03 UTC (Mon) by simlo (subscriber, #10866) [Link] No, I am not. I find the microkernel idea facinating but as far as I see it it has failed completely. Which systems are truely microkernel these days? I have heard that even QNX have pulled some stuff into the kernel space to make it fast enough!I have heard people pressing for the microkernel idea without memory protection, too. There the idea is that each subsystem although they all run within the same memory space has it's own thread. The only way they can communicate is with messages. The reason for this is to enforce a strict decoubling and avoid locks between multiple threads. But it is still not very effective... But I say: We need the "microkernel" ideas for stability and also to get some properitary extensions. What I argue for is that the whole API for making drivers is made available in both kernel and userspace. Then you can start by making drivers in user space where it is easier to debug and reload and once it has proven stable it can be moved to within the kernel. Companies who don't want to GPL their code have to let it stay in user space where it is slow.
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