On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Derek Glidden wrote:
> Um? "usual"? Ok. Maybe in the DOS or Windows world... I thought
> Linux people kind of understood this whole "open source" thing. You
> might have heard about it...
And what about people who don't have installed compilers or kernel source?
Or those who wouldn't know or care how to compile the kernel even if they
had those things? Or who are stuck with closed-source hardware drivers (I
know the stock response to that, but hey, it does happen in the real
world)?
And the problem of distributing third party modules (not even necessarily
drivers, if "proprietary" hardware offends your delicate sensibilities),
that users might want to obtain in binary format and have things "just
work". Like AFS or anything else that lives in the kernel.
Not to mention the simple situation of an upgrade, where a single patch
(if it does something unexpected) can render your older modules unloadable
and trigger a complete recompile. Or going from UP to SMP, or a host of
other possible changes.
These things are all utter non-problems under Solaris, because there's a
DDI/DKI that formalizes the binary interface between kernel and modules.
So how does Linux having the same capability become a bad thing?
But if you think this situation is actually *desireable*, that it somehow
helps the acceptance of Linux, and users enjoy dealing with module hell on
a regular basis, then as I said, the discussion is pointless. I'm *far*
from the only person to have ever pointed out this problem, so it's
clearly something a lot of people want to see resolved for the betterment
of Linux.
> And no, when someone says "The lack of any well-defined
> kernel<-->module interface" it's not obvious you mean an ABI;
Except that the context of discussion was compiled modules, and
suggesting that there was no C API to write kernel modules would be a
rather silly statement.
> > I disagree, but there's not much point in continuing the discussion if
> > what I believe to be a bug, you believe to be a feature.
> Oh man. That's my favorite cop-out. "You're wrong, so there's no
> point in discussing anymore. Hurrah I win! I'm the coolest!"
I'm not sure how you got all that out of "let's agree to disagree", but
suit yourself. I do think you're wrong, but the only loser is Linux in
the sense that it's missing a pretty useful feature.
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