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Windows has a relatively stable driver ABI. Old drivers can run on new builds of the system.

Linux doesn't. So OS updates leave behind old drivers.

So manufacturers don't have to do anything for their drivers to continue working on Windows, and it is often the case that updates will stop shortly after hardware is released.




Why can't Linux provide a stable driver ABI for compatibility? E.g. in addition to the unstable one. Like FUSE.


You think you want a stable kernel interface, but you really do not, and you don't even know it. What you want is a stable running driver, and you get that only if your driver is in the main kernel tree.

— Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com>

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/stable-api-no...


Redhat EL provides this. There are various engineering reasons for why they don't care for it in the Linus kernels. So it seems nobody wants to invest the engineering effort to do this for Android.


They did it already, Project Treble.




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