Re: policy on GPL'd drivers?

On Wednesday, May 28, 2003, at 01:23 AM, Terry Lambert wrote:

> 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.
>

I think for current all bets are off anyway.  I think supporting a 3rd 
party
driver should really only "have-to" support releases.  Now I may have 
to re-evaluate
that thought for a stable tree as there is a level of confidence there 
that everything
else will probably still work... it could be tricky :)

[just scrambling to put the worms back in the can]


Dave