David Kanter (dkanter@realworldtech.com) on 1/3/11 wrote:
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>So I saw Charlie had a rant up on Sandy Bridge Linux support, and it seemed a little
>odd to me. I'm not sure I see where the problem lies.

Moronix has a more balanced take on it: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODk2OA

>Based on reading what he wrote, it sounds like the issue is that driver release
>schedules in the open-source community are a little less...co-ordinated...than in
>the Windows world. Namely, that Intel cannot get ISVs (or FOSS projects) to incorporate
>drivers before the hardware launch for press reviewers.

Pretty close. The problem is that drivers must flow from hardware vendors through upstream and then through distros to reach users, and these gatekeepers have fixed release schedules and long latency. Thus if you release drivers in January, (if you're lucky) they reach users in April. If you release drivers in February they probably miss the .04 freeze and reach users in October. Thus to ensure that users have drivers when the hardware is released, you need to send the drivers to Linus 6-9 months before the hardware ships. This is hard, and heaven forbid that you want to keep anything secret pre-launch.