On Tue, 2008-06-17 at 14:43 -0400, Daniel Barkalow wrote:

quoted text
> That's the same reason the wireless drivers didn't get merged sooner, wit=
h=20
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> the slight difference that they were waiting on the new 802.11 stack's=20
> interface to stabilize, rather than their own interface.
>=20
> On the other hand, it would be good if there were a way to include=20
> unstable APIs in the mainline kernel so that they could get some exposure=
=20
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> before they're set in stone, and that would also eliminate that reason fo=
r=20
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> keeping drivers out so long.

Small correction here: We actually did evolve the mac80211 APIs quite
radically in mainline (and new API revamps will be landing in .26
and .27).

Most drivers, however, were waiting to be written against the mac80211
API, i.e. there were drivers against net80211 or  (even more of them)
drivers that had their own 802.11 stack in the driver, which meant the
driver needed to be "ported" (rewritten) to mac80211's API.

Stuff like that takes a time when each driver has at best one or two
interested developers.

johannes