Re: [Q]: Linux and real device drivers

Jes Sorensen (Jes.Sorensen@cern.ch)
26 Sep 1999 12:12:50 +0200


>>>>> "David" == David Hinds <dhinds@zen.stanford.edu> writes:

David> On Sat, Sep 25, 1999 at 05:58:37PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
>> > Relying on the kernel source code as a primary means of
>> communication > between key kernel developers is simply wrong.
>>
>> Any better ideas. None I have seen in any other free project
>> worked.

David> One suggestion would be to have a set of man pages included in
David> the kernel tree. And try to make them sufficiently useful that
David> people would want to keep them up to date. In this case, I
David> think adding to the kernel tree would be a good thing, because
David> it keeps the documentation in the same place as what it is
David> documenting. I'd be willing to write man pages for a few
David> things myself. The current documentation in the kernel tree is
David> a bit too informal and incomplete.

This will only work if you have a way of forcing people to update the
documentation when they change the code. People will modify other
peoples' code, sometimes they know what they are doing, sometimes they
don't.

These man pages (or whatever else) will get outdated, and there is no
way to enforce that they are updated. This is a free software project,
you can't just fire people for being too lazy to write
documentation. That said, we already have some documentation on
important things in Documentation, feel free to update it.

Jes

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