Requests for Linux drivers flowing in (ZDNet Asia) [LWN.net]

ZDNet Asia reports that manufacturers are requesting Linux drivers for their hardware. "According to Greg Kroah-Hartman, Novell programmer and Linux Driver Project lead, the group of some 400 programmers at the Project receive requests to port existing closed-source drivers to open source drivers for Linux "all the time", and has been "doing a lot of work on this over the past few years"."

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More pressure on device manufacturers?

Posted Aug 16, 2009 7:59 UTC (Sun) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] (3 responses)

If the system OEMs want drivers, it suggests that we now have more pressure on the device manufacturers to document their interfaces. Up to now, we've only had individuals telling said manufacturers that they'd better open up or we'd buy something that did. Now we've got corporations doing the same.

This can only be good.

More pressure on device manufacturers?

Posted Aug 16, 2009 10:19 UTC (Sun) by ikm (guest, #493) [Link] (2 responses)

I think there's no requirement to actually document any interfaces. More than that, driver development can be done under NDA. What matters is that the result is available under GPL.

More pressure on device manufacturers?

Posted Aug 16, 2009 17:14 UTC (Sun) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] (1 responses)

development can be done under NDA

Perhaps, but that can lead to other problems. Our Estimable Editor, for instance, is ambivalent about it.

More pressure on device manufacturers?

Posted Aug 16, 2009 22:51 UTC (Sun) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

well not all NDAs are made equal and there often is no documentation.

The source code ends up being the documentation and they often need help writing it. This requires working with engineers in the company, which are working with products other then one that is released. So the NDA's purpose is often not to protect the 'interfaces' or keep them secret (which is rather pointless with decent open source drivers being written) but to make sure that people don't accidentally leak information about the company to competitors and whatnot.

It's up to the person working with the company and signing NDA to make sure that it isn't going to prevent them from working with competitors and limit what they can do in the future.

Driver development

Posted Aug 20, 2009 10:51 UTC (Thu) by AndyCap (subscriber, #33480) [Link]

Hopefully we won't see too many repeats of this. Driver developed but then the hardware manufacturer has a change of heart and driver disappears.
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