Tuesday, 6 February 2007

Kernel Developers Provide Free Linux Driver Development

Device drivers have always plagued the Linux community. The community feels that this has been the hurdle to Linux adoption.

Device drivers have always plagued the Linux community. The community feels that this has been the hurdle to Linux adoption. Greg Kroah-Hartman, is employed by Novell and is one of the Linux kernel subsystem maintainers, wrote on his blog, "You will receive a complete and working Linux driver that is added to the main Linux kernel source tree. The driver will be written by some of the members of the Linux kernel developer community (over 1500 strong and growing). This driver will then be automatically included in all Linux distributions, including the "enterprise" ones. It will be automatically kept up to date and working through all Linux kernel API changes. This driver will work with all of the different CPU types supported by Linux, the largest number of CPU types supported by any operating system ever before in the history of computing".

He also wrote that, "We work to try to fulfil any time requirements that companies have", he said. "So far no one has asked us for any deadlines, but if that happens we will work with it as best as we can."

Now, there is no excuse for [companies] to not have Linux drivers, he said.

"[The response has been] very good so far, I have numerous companies interested in taking us up on the offer and am just starting to work with them on the needed details", he added.

"Expanding the availability of quality, supported drivers will help accelerate the adoption of Linux in general and on the desktop in particular,' said Tom Hanrahan, director of engineering, The Linux Foundation. "The Linux Foundation's Non-Disclosure Agreement Program contributes to that expansion by facilitating collaboration between open-source developers and the hardware and software engineers who design and manufacture hardware devices", he continued.