Re: [Tech-board-discuss] Obtaining hardware for writing Linux drivers?

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 06:51:06PM -0500, Chris Ball wrote:
> Hi Greg, thanks for the reply,
> 
> On Fri, Mar 04 2011, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 04:23:31PM -0500, Chris Ball wrote:
> >> In the case of this particular device, I was pointed at Bdale Garbee by
> >> people on IRC (but wouldn't have known to e-mail him myself) and will
> >> see if I can get him to help.  But, even assuming he can help me, that
> >> still doesn't solve the problem in the general case.  Any ideas?
> >
> > I'd be glad to step up and work on accomplishing this.  But, supposing I
> > am successful in getting these contacts and keeping them up to date, how
> > would you recommend that we publicize this type of functionality that we
> > could now provide?
> 
> A strawman proposal might look like:
> 
> * A mail to lkml announcing the program
> * LWN article doing the same
> * A mail to LF company members asking them to nominate a contact
>   person and encouraging them to take part, explaining how they'll
>   benefit from people who *already* want to write drivers for them
>   for free and just can't get the hardware they need to do so.

I think I'll do the last one first, to get a critical mass before
announcing it.

Supposedly we already have a technical contact at every LF member
company that would be the person we could use for this contact, but I
need to follow up and track that information down to get it in a usable
form.

> Once a decent mass of kernel hackers know about it, I'm sure it'll
> spread by word of mouth to reach everyone else who needs to know;
> I don't think there'll be a problem with disseminating the program
> once the first batch of hackers knows about it.

You are probably right, but it never ceases to amaze me how no one reads
our documentation, so putting it in a prominate place will be good :)

I'll work on this and let you know how it goes.

thanks,

greg k-h