[PATCH] Implement Symbol-Based Video Driver Autoloading

[David Nusinow]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2007 at 11:42:47AM +0200, Daniel Stone wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 08:26:02PM -0500, David Nusinow wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 03:47:21AM -0200, pcpa at mandriva.com.br wrote:
> > >  Oh, and, I am not sure, but I believe, drivers should not have full access
> > > to X Server symbols. But since they all run in the same process, implementing
> > > some kind of "ioctl like interface" probably would be pointless. At least a
> > > fix for xf86ansic would also be desirable, i.e. not have some modules linked
> > > to use directly libc functions, and others to use the xf86<libc-symbol>,
> > > and/or mixing them. For open source drivers, this probably isn't a problem,
> > > but full access to closed source drivers should not be available, i.e. a video
> > > driver connecting to the internet, reading/writing from/to random files,
> > > starting threads, messing with signals or kernel modules...
> > 
> > I'm not sure this is worth doing. Having the drivers as part of the running
> > process works fine for things like the linux kernel. And as more of the
> > drivers move in to the kernel itself, I think the arguments for doing this
> > become less and less worthwhile.
> 
> Hi,
> ajax has already been doing this with _X_EXPORT.

Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. I'm all for hiding unnecessary symbols, but
a major rearchitecture for it is beyond what I want to work on right away.

 - David Nusinow