David, Thanks for the reply. I sense as in many emails regarding this a sense of frustration and this is a concern. I am writing to the list to try and learn and because I value the experiences of other people. As far as my hardware is concerned there is much more to it than a serial port and an interupt controller. What I was trying to explain was that I would not mind making my code available for these kernel changes. Although I don't understand why anyone would want it. Apart from API changes, why do this ? The kernel is not easily or frequently changed on this type of system. It would bloat the kernel and I would expect to have to address problems of this nature myself. However I would not like to make code available for the more specialised hardware. Thanks Simon. 0100,0100,0100On 7 Oct 2002, at 3:36, David S. Miller wrote: 7F00,0000,0000> From: "" < > Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 11:06:03 +0100 > > No one else can run these drivers so > how could I expect someone else to maintain them ? > > This is a common misconception. When sweeping API changes > are made to fix some bug or whatever, if your driver is in > the tree the person making the API change will update your > driver or add a comment saying "the new API does this, I > couldn't figure out how to do that with your driver, please > update" in a comment. > > You get free work like this just as a side effect of being > in the tree. > > It will also be sanity build checked by lots of people who > run the current kernels through a "enable everything" configuration. > > However I can not understand how it would be practical for many > organizations to release code under the GPL for specific hardware. > > See above. > > This to some companies is too much to give > away. Perhaps someone could educate me on this point ? > > You talked about an interrupt controller, a serial port, lack of VGA, > and lack of RTC on your system... doesn't sound like any ground > breaking hardware to me. > > Franks a lot, > David S. Miller > davem@redhat.com __________________________ Simon Haynes - Baydel Phone : 44 (0) 1372 378811 Email : simon@baydel.com __________________________ - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/