[forum] "Drivers? We don't need no stinking..."

[Mike A. Harris]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2003, David Wexelblat wrote:

>> It isnt just about documentation, although that is a 
>> significant factor.
>
>FWIW, this is probably a place where the distribution vendors could help out
>- by providing a financial incentive to the people skilled enough to do the
>port/reimplementation. The people who have the skillset are, in general, not
>particularly interested in (and often don't have access to) the old
>hardware. If the distribution vendors were to contract out the work, that
>might entice someone who would otherwise spend their free time playing with
>new toys.

What financial return on investment would there be by paying 
someone to port ancient drivers from 3.3.6 to 4.x?

>FWIW3 - If you want to learn how to do this sort of stuff, porting an old
>driver to XAA, using the 3.x code and the old docs to learn about the
>chipsets, then looking at docs for a chipset that has an existing 4.x
>driver, will be a really educational experience. I got started with all this
>by studying Thomas Roell's ET4000 code and a databook for a few days...

I can agree with that.  There is zero ROI for paying someone to 
perform this effort however.


-- 
Mike A. Harris