Re:Linux 4.20 released
by IshKebab on Monday December 24, 2018 @12:41PM
(#18753207)
Linux doesn't have a stable driver interface. There's no way to write a driver that works on a few different versions of Linux. The way you are "supposed" to do it according to the kernel developers is to open source your driver code and convince the kernel developers to merge it into the kernel itself.
Yes this is a stupid design. They do it because it means they don't have to worry about backwards compatibility or API stability at all, which is a nice thing to not have to worry about. But it comes at the cost of bad hardware support in Linux (and difficult-to-update Android phones).
Re:Linux 4.20 released
by rrix2 on Monday December 24, 2018 @01:32PM
(#18753491)
They do it so that anyone can improve the state of the drivers, not just programmers with apple.com email addresses working in secrecy and dumping a shit binary over the fence
Yes this is a stupid design. They do it because it means they don't have to worry about backwards compatibility or API stability at all, which is a nice thing to not have to worry about. But it comes at the cost of bad hardware support in Linux (and difficult-to-update Android phones).