> I wonder how far a compatibility layer for Linux drivers could go to help other UNIX kernels' usability

This isn't very interesting. It means you're constrained to the Linux design decisions, and you're wasting time debugging mismatches and poor design decisions.

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msgodel 6 days ago | parent [-]

It also creates a licensing issue. Part of the reason Linux has so many drivers is because the GPL requires all of the kernel code be provided to users under the GPL as well. If you link to that in your OS/distribution now all of your code must be published in the same way.

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gr4vityWall 6 days ago | parent [-]

Can't an hypothetical cross platform driver be MIT licensed and be part of both?

Although I'd be more than happy with other OSes/distributions defaulting to GPL.

	▲	yjftsjthsd-h 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Can't an hypothetical cross platform driver be MIT licensed and be part of both? Yes, but if the goal is to reuse existing code that already exists in Linux then there's no reason to expect it to be under a permissive license. Some of it actually already is if I recall correctly, but you shouldn't expect that. > Although I'd be more than happy with other OSes/distributions defaulting to GPL. Illumos isn't GPL and and in the legal views of many people can't be compatible with it; CDDL/GPL (in)compatibility is a very long running issue, usually in the other direction with CDDL ZFS drivers in the GPL Linux kernel. (IANAL; I'm not asserting specifically that it is or is not actually compatible, just that a lot of people consider it to be incompatible)