September 9, 2009, 3:49 pm
With the Linux 2.6.32 kernel merge window opening up this month, open-source developers around the world have been busy working on their code that they wish to push into this next major kernel update. There is already 3D and KMS support coming to the R600/700 hardware from ATI with this next kernel release along with the KMS page-flipping ioctl and other graphics-related changes, but now Novell’s Greg Kroah-Hartman has written a lengthy message detailing the status of the different drivers in the staging tree for Linux 2.6.32.
Over three dozen Linux staging drivers are mentioned, but there’s a few interesting comments in particular. For instance, Google’s Android drivers may end up being dropped from the staging tree within the Linux 2.6.32 cycle. While Android uses Linux and Google is quite friendly with Linux and different open-source projects, the developers working on the upstream Android drivers aren’t caring whether or not this code enters the mainline kernel. Instead these developers are just concerning themselves with running the drivers on the Linux 2.6.29 kernel they currently are using. If this continues to occur, the Android drivers will disappear from the staging tree. In a similar situation, Microsoft’s Hyper-V drivers may end up getting dropped in the Linux 2.6.33 release…
