[cgl_discussion] Linux Streams project update
Mika Kukkonen
mika at osdl.org
Wed Jun 25 10:20:45 PDT 2003
On Wed, 2003-06-25 at 09:45, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> Are there any latent IP issues here? Given that Streams is an SVR4 thing.
"Before Linux was available, Dennis M. Ritchie designed STREAMS for the
ninth edition of UNIX (see Resources 5). Since then, the STREAMS
concept has been improved and revised by different operating systems.
Variants ranging from UNIX SVR4 STREAMS (see Resources 1) to Plan 9
Streams (see Resources 3) exist today.
Unfortunately, SVR4 complicated the neat and clean design of the ninth
edition's STREAMS mainly to add new features, such as atomic
gather/scatter writes and multiprocessor support.
[...]
Most UNIX features have been available in source form for people to
read and use. STREAMS was a notable exception. Therefore, even though
we could have designed LiS to support just the STREAMS interface, we
also tried to follow its design. If SVR4 STREAMS code had been
available, the project could have been reduced to a simple port. As a
result, the design guide was a mixture of a couple of books showing how
STREAMS work
[...]
LiS is licensed using the GNU Library Public License so that companies
can port their existing SVR4 proprietary STREAMS drivers to LiS and use
them in Linux without having to publish their source code.
"
Quotes from http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3086
--MiKu
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