Re: Portable binary drivers (was Re: Linux headed for disaster?)

Hans de Goede (hans@highrise.nl)
Tue, 07 Dec 1999 15:28:21 +0100


>> I am confident that a solution to support binary loadable modules will
>> be accepted by Linus and Alan -- if it does not add overhead to the
>> kernel.
>
>It must also be running in a way that it cannot trigger a bug in existing
>kernel code, otherwise we have binaries triggering stuff that we cannot
>debug. That is what makes it hard.
>

This is really unreasonable, I think that such a beast (a layer to allow
binary compatible drivers for those who want to write such drivers)
could be very usefull, I do agree that it should be very clean, and as
fast as possible. But demanding that it is written in such a way that
drivers using it can't cause any problems is totally unreasonable, even
if it was a driver interpreter (would solve platform independce) it
could still crash a machine, if the device it
controls locks up the bus.

I do completly agree that we should be very clear that questions from
users with a binary only driver will not be answered, and that they
should:
-reproduce the problem without that driver loaded
-if that fails take it up with the drivers maintainer

But demanding that a binary compatibility layer is written in such a way
that it is impossible to crash the system with a binary driver is
unfair, the driver is running ring 0 after all.

Regards,

Hans

p.s.

please cc, I'm not on the list.

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