Timothy Murphy wrote:
The difference is
that closed source OS's rarely change their driver interfaces, so it
would be extremely unusual for something that already works and I have
put into production to suddenly fail due to an update.
I find this an astonishing assertion.
Surely the Linux kernel interface changes reasonably often?
I think you misunderstood. I said closed source - as opposed to Linux -
doesn't change driver interfaces often. With Linux the kernel changes
continuously but it is up to the distribution what is shipped. RHEL
maintains something stable. Fedora doesn't.
But a closed source driver has to interface with the Linux kernel.
Most of my closed source drivers are used with closed source OS's and
are simply not an issue. The only one I use regularly with Linux is
the vmware module which is moderated by having an interface of its own
that can be recompiled if needed.
In fedora, this
has been a regular occurrence.
Such as?
Firewire disk drives are my favorite example. The MPT scsi controllers
on IBM servers and some Dells have also failed to work with several
fedora kernels.
Has this actually got anything to do with Fedora?
Did Fedora modify the kernel SCSI driver in some way?
Or is the driver not in the kernel?
Distributions generally don't ship every kernel exactly as blessed by
Linus. Fedora chose to ship things that didn't work. It didn't really
matter to me if it was a fedora-local change or they just passed it
through - I think some of each has happened.
Just to repeat my argument.
I would have thought a closed source driver
was much less likely to keep up with kernel changes
than a Linux driver.
My (limited) experience with closed source Linux drivers
is that they generally specify that they work with a given kernel.
Things work through the 7-year life of an RHEL (and thus Centos) kernel.
They sometimes work through the 2 week (or so) life of a fedora
kernel. It's a strange model where you get the software for free but pay
them (in the RHEL case) not to break it with updates.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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