Roadmap
From OpenDriversWiki
Open Source Device Drivers 2006 Roadmap
Contents |
History
OSDL hosted two Open Driver Forums this past year. One at LWE Boston in
February 2005 and the other at LWE San Francisco in August 2005. In
both cases, a clear message from the kernel developers that attended the
forum was that "Driver writers unfamiliar with Linux and Open Source
processes need to learn how to port their drivers to Linux so that they
can be maintained in the mainline kernel." Individuals new to Open
Source need to educate themselves on existing community standards and
"best-practices" in order to interact effectively with community
members. In many cases, device driver writers don't know where to
start; information is widely scattered throughout the web and in many
cases, some elements of know-how isn't even documented. In addition,
technical gaps that have risen from the kernel community need to be
addressed. OSDL has agreed to undertake some of the activities that will help
alleviate the concerns addressed by the forum attendees.
Current Status
On November 11, 2005 - The Open Source Device Drivers web site was launched. The original focus of the site was to act as an information portal to developers, testers, and users to help them gain the vital knowledge they need to begin their interaction with the community. The site wanted to introduce individuals to the proper way of doing things so they can make a positive first step into their Linux open source community involvement. It has and continues to be populated with articles, documentation, and training material to help device driver developers get accustomed to the methods and processes of the Linux kernel community.
Future Goals
It has been recognized that lowering the barrier of entry for developers coming into the Linux Open Source Community is a necessary step towards improving interaction between established community members and those new to Open Source. However, developers are not the only individuals who need education and assistance learning how to become a part of the Open Source community. Program managers, product managers, senior management, end users, legal teams, etc. all need this type of information. An ongoing goal of this project is to expand the amount of provided information to target all of these prospective groups. The types of documentation and information we'd like to cover includes, but is not limited to, the following:
- Developer information that needs to be developed and published includes:
- Kernel API documentation pertaining to device drivers such as storage, networking, printers, video, and audio subsystems.
- How to license code that is opened to the kernel community
- Providing templates and guidelines for writing device drivers
- Storing a library of tests to exercise newly written drivers
- Information for program managers and product managers that needs to be published includes:
- What does a real life time line look like for open sourcing a driver, getting it merged into mainline, and then merged into distros.
- What to expect in terms of support and maintenance from the kernel community
- How to plan the life expectancy of the driver that is released as open source
- Alternatives for maintaining and supporting a driver that is not accepted into the mainline kernel
- Open Source driver development checklists
- Types of information that need to be addressed for legal departments include the following:
- How to mitigate legal and patent issues in opening up a device driver
- What license should one use for their open source driver
- How to protect your intellectual property and still provide open drivers
- Information provided to senior management should include the following:
- What are the risks vs. benefits to creating an open source version of a proprietary driver
- What are the legal issues one needs to worry about when creating an open source version of a proprietary driver (summarized for executive management)
- Business benefits
Along with our effort to bridge the education gap, we also want to focus some efforts in the area of driver testing as well as tackling project requests made by the community. The driver testing portion is currently underway. We're in the process of aquiring hardware, drivers and test plans. We hope to be publishing results very soon. The project requests are still moving slowly due to a lack of resources. An overview of these project requests can be seen on the Project_Requests page. If you would like to help contribute, please take a look at the Donation Requests page as well.
How You Can Help
We put together a Donation Reqeuests page. It specifically outlines some areas where it would be great to get some outside contributions and help from.
