Subject: Re: linux audio code
To: Frank van der Linden <frank@fwi.uva.nl>
From: None <Chris_G_Demetriou@NIAGARA.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU>
List: current-users
Date: 03/11/1996 05:02:22
> I agree that if memset() is added, for consistency and other reasons
> it would be better to move to mem* entirely. Although that would
> break imported device drivers etc.

In my opinion, there are enough differences between NetBSD and other
systems that 'imported device drivers' have to be sufficiently careful
about what they're doing that:

#define bzero(...) ...

isn't going to even be a small fraction of what they have to do.


For instance, consider what an 'imported' PCI device driver must do to
fit into NetBSD:
	(1) deal with our PCI bus attachment & resource access
	    functions, which, as far as i know, are different
	    than those on other systems,
	(2) deal with stuff like the interfaces <machine/bus.h>, if
	    they're actually going to go into /sys/dev/pci, and
	    claim machine-independence,

each of those is a fair number of diffs, unless the driver is very
carefully written...

Importing drivers really isn't an issue to me, anyway; it doesn't
happen much, and generally when it does you end up regretting it.  8-)


cgd