Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 23:23:33 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Q <q_dolan@yahoo.com.au> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: policy on GPL'd drivers? Message-ID: <3ED455E5.55EE34DC@mindspring.com> References: <C90CF9CA-9040-11D7-941E-0003937E39E0@mac.com> <1054090968.1429.10.camel@boxster>
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Q wrote: > I have been burnt by this in the past also. I think that it would be > useful if you could allow kernel modules to be bound to a particular > kernel "version/date/whatever", and have external modules refuse to load > and/or complain if the kernel is upgraded. This should prevent > unnecessary kernel panics when you upgrade. The Linux kernel has been > doing this for years. The FreeBSD DDI/DKI is not well enough documented, let alone versioned, let alone stable enough over time for this to work. Consider how long a third party binary-only driver would keep working for someone following -current, and you will see the problem. Basically, the only thing you are protecting against at that point is the driver not loading most of the time, and making people'se lives miserable bumping a single version number each time any non-static function in the kernel is changed. 8-(. FreeBSD would need to get a lot more serious about freezing kernel APIs for this type of thing to work. -- Terry
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