Re: Writing drivers for USB devices ?, was: Re: What's the state of USB

From: Simon Clubley (clubley_at_remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP)
Date: 01/05/05 

Date: 5 Jan 2005 13:06:19 -0600

In article <41DC30F5.C3E8CD38@hp.com>, Forrest Kenney <Forrest.Kenney@hp.com> writes:
>
> At the present time there are no plans to document the USB
> driver stack or provide a way to customers to write a USB device
> driver. It a choice between having time to actively develop and
> maintain the code base or get all the pieces into the kit and
> documentation developed. Right now adding USB 2.0 and fixing bugs have
> a higher priority.
>
> To fully document writing a USB device driver would require
> chapters for the HID support driver, the USB support driver, the driver
> interface to the USB Configuration manager process, and the HUB driver.
>
> What might happen is a driver for the USB space something like
> GK driver for SCSI. It would allow support of USB devices that are
> not part of the HID device class without writing a driver. You could
> easily control many USB device that way. I am working on a proposal
> for doing this at the present time and will present it to management
> for approval. No promises there is more USB stuff to work on than
> I have time to get done. Writing a and documenting a single generic
> USB driver would be much simpler than documenting all the stuff to
> write a random USB device driver.
>

Thanks for the feedback.

If you cannot document the full USB infrastructure and add support for
general customer written USB device drivers, then having something like
the GK driver could still be useful in some cases, so I for one would
look forward to seeing that.

If you obtain management approval, do you have any ideas how long it would
be before we see a GK type driver for USB ?

Thanks for any information,

Simon. 

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP       
Microsoft: The Standard Oil Company of the 21st century

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