Kernel-Log: kernel development explained, new Synaptics driver, Linux 2.6.27-rc3 released
Summary
The Kernel-Log of August 2008 presented Jon Corbet’s guide “How to Participate in the Linux Community”, which explains the kernel development process to newcomers and companies. In addition, the Synaptics touchpad driver 0.15.0 appeared for the first time under the MIT licence in the X.org project. With Linux 2.6.27-rc3 the auerswald ISDN driver was dropped, and support for Intel’s upcoming Ibex Peak chipsets was added.
Ideas
- A guide is meant to spare hardware manufacturers typical mistakes when getting started with kernel development.
- Corbet sent the text as a patch to the kernel mailing list for review.
- An orphaned driver regained momentum with a new maintainer and a change of licence.
- Some drivers are moving to user space, for example via libusb.
Insights
- Documenting the process is as important as code for companies to take part.
- Documentation also benefits from the same review process as source code.
Facts
- Jon Corbet ran LWN.net and wrote the guide for the Linux Foundation.
- Synaptics 0.15.0 was the first version under the MIT licence.
References
Critique
- As a round-up, the text strings many topics together without going into any of them in more detail.
Remarks
- Today Corbet’s text is part of the documentation in the kernel source tree as “development-process”.
Recommendations
- Before your first kernel patch, read the process documentation under Documentation/process.
- Submit documentation for review as well before you publish it.
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