We have already discussed this, here's yet another opinion: http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/23/214258 ->
" This is why we need a kernel api and abi (Score:2) by Billly Gates (198444) Alter Relationship on Tuesday January 24, @02:03AM (#14544582) (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sinistertim101 | Last Journal: Thursday December 22, @08:27PM) Flamebait all you want from the moderators reading this belonging to the pure gnu persusian but writing closed source drivers are tough for linux. Blame the manufactors? Its the FCC that forces them to not give out details to hackers. Many other governments have similiar regulations on what hackers can and can not do to wireless. The government doesn't want people takign down airplanes are terrorists doing espianage on communication equipment. So they must stay closed source if they are an American company. Many manufactors are now using software and creating win-wlan cards to save money. Remember what happened to linux after modem makers only made software modems? Samething with winprinters that make up the majority of printers today. Under windows you write once and most likely the drivers will work with future versions of windows unless there is a major upgrade. That is because of NDIS and kernel and software level api's and device driver kits for windows. We need a consistant and stable abi's and api's for linux so hardware makers can release the drivers for linux. Also old solaris drivers work just fine under solaris10 because of consistant api's and abi's. I know VIA and several manufactors have requesting to Morton and Linus for this feature even though it divides then linux community. ". ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=103432&bid=230486&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
