Better Drivers Coming Soon To A Linux Kernel Near You
After Adobe’s failure to provide apps for Linux, perhaps the chief complaint of Linux users is the lack of drivers for third party products, but that might be set to change. Linus Torvalds has rolled patches into the mainline tree of the Linux kernel that implement a stable userspace driver API.
The stable driver API has been around for some time, Greg Kroah-Hartman announced it last year, but this is first sign that they will indeed be included in the next revision of the Linux kernel.
The idea behind the API is to make life easier for driver developers, which could in turn lead to more and better drivers for the platform.
But the really nice part is that closed source drivers now have a way to legally run on top of Linux, which eliminates the much disputed issue of including non-GPL drivers in the Linux kernel.
The new API will also provide a stable platform for driver developers since it allows the drivers to run outside the kernel, meaning privately developed drivers can be reused even if the kernel changes (assuming the API remains stable, which it should).
[via Slashdot]
