John C. Dvorak

Therein Lies the Rub Dept.:
What I constantly hear regarding a new OS is the issue with drivers. People can't get the drivers needed for a new OS. Why not? This is the computer age; can't something be done to automate driver development? How about compatible drivers—the plug-compatible idea that was thrown at the IBM mainframes in the 1970s? Let's say I have a new OS that uses the highly universal W2K drivers to communicate with peripherals. You want to add your weird scanner? You download the W2K drivers, and it works. Is this impossible to comprehend or do?

I cannot see how licensing restrictions would apply to this idea since the peripheral makers usually provide the drivers. In terms of talking to the OS, I'm sure Microsoft has some patented tricks. But who can't circumvent those nowadays?

Complaining about drivers makes no sense. Has anyone seriously tried to do computer analysis of existing drivers to create an original driver? Let's say you have that weird scanner. You can get a Linux driver, a W2K driver, and an XP driver for it. These drivers act as middlemen between the scanner and the OS. They follow rules to do their job. Dissect these rules and create a new set for a new OS. Automate it.

There may be some sketchy DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) strings to this, but at least develop the code. If you are worried sick about getting sued, throw the code into the public domain and see what happens. I'm baffled as to why someone hasn't created a driver converter for Linux. Is it impossible? Or just too much work?