[patch] update SubmittingDrivers

Adrian Bunk (bunk@fs.tum.de)
Mon, 30 Sep 2002 18:32:37 +0200 (CEST)


The patch below makes the following changes to SubmittingDrivers:

- document that not only 2.2 and 2.4 are covered by it
- update the information for 2.4
- include information for 2.5
- fix a very long line in Licensing
- Portability: add "not all computers are little endian"

cu
Adrian

--- linux-2.4.19/Documentation/SubmittingDrivers.old 2002-09-30 18:14:51.000000000 +0200
+++ linux-2.4.19/Documentation/SubmittingDrivers 2002-09-30 18:31:33.000000000 +0200
@@ -2,9 +2,8 @@
---------------------------------------

This document is intended to explain how to submit device drivers to the
-Linux 2.2 and 2.4 kernel trees. Note that if you are interested in video
-card drivers you should probably talk to XFree86 (http://www.xfree86.org)
-instead.
+various kernel trees. Note that if you are interested in video card drivers
+you should probably talk to XFree86 (http://www.xfree86.org) instead.

Also read the Documentation/SubmittingPatches document.

@@ -35,21 +34,23 @@
maintainer then please contact Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>

Linux 2.4:
- This kernel tree is under active development. The same rules apply
- as 2.2 but you may wish to submit your driver via linux-kernel (see
- resources) and follow that list to track changes in API's. These
- should no longer be occuring as we are now in a code freeze.
- The final contact point for Linux 2.4 submissions is
- <torvalds@transmeta.com>.
+ The same rules apply as 2.2 but this kernel tree is under active
+ development. The final contact point for Linux 2.4 submissions is
+ Marcelo Tosatti <marcelo@conectiva.com.br>.
+
+Linux 2.5:
+ The same rules apply as 2.4 but you should follow linux-kernel
+ to track changes in API's. The final contact point for Linux 2.5
+ submissions is Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>.

What Criteria Determine Acceptance
----------------------------------

-Licensing: The code must be released to us under the GNU General Public License.
- We don't insist on any kind of exclusively GPL licensing,
- and if you wish the driver to be useful to other communities
- such as BSD you may well wish to release under multiple
- licenses.
+Licensing: The code must be released to us under the
+ GNU General Public License. We don't insist on any kind
+ of exclusively GPL licensing, and if you wish the driver
+ to be useful to other communities such as BSD you may well
+ wish to release under multiple licenses.

Interfaces: If your driver uses existing interfaces and behaves like
other drivers in the same class it will be much more likely
@@ -64,12 +65,13 @@
maintain them just once seperate them out nicely and note
this fact.

-Portability: Pointers are not always 32bits, people do not all have
- floating point and you shouldn't use inline x86 assembler in
- your driver without careful thought. Pure x86 drivers
- generally are not popular. If you only have x86 hardware it
- is hard to test portability but it is easy to make sure the
- code can easily be made portable.
+Portability: Pointers are not always 32bits, not all computers are little
+ endian, people do not all have floating point and you
+ shouldn't use inline x86 assembler in your driver without
+ careful thought. Pure x86 drivers generally are not popular.
+ If you only have x86 hardware it is hard to test portability
+ but it is easy to make sure the code can easily be made
+ portable.

Clarity: It helps if anyone can see how to fix the driver. It helps
you because you get patches not bug reports. If you submit a

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