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I don't see how microkernels have anything to do with all of that? Userspace drivers exists in all systems and arguably they are not more backward compatible or

by temac 10y ago

I don't see how microkernels have anything to do with all of that? Userspace drivers exists in all systems and arguably they are not more backward compatible or anything than kernel-space drivers, just the incompatibilities appears against other system-frameworks in other address spaces, instead of the (micro)-kernel. Ex: when windows switched to 64-bits, 32-bits userspace printer drivers where incompatible (it could and IMO it should have been done otherwise, but what happen is that they were broken!) And more competition in the h/w space? Common, you already have an insane amount of competition for Android phones, and even some of the biggest multinational don't give a shit about maintaining SW for their product beyond a few months, even for security purposes. The only think we can do is prescription to every people we know: ex. tell all your non technical friends to never buy e.g. a Samsung phone. It's ridiculous, because Android is the worse ecosystem for security purposes. If you want to be somehow protected, you can stick to iPhones, or, in a funny way, Windows 10 Mobile.

bubblethink 10y ago
>And more competition in the h/w space? Common, you already have an insane amount of competition for Android phones That competition is only on the surface. For SoC, GPU, baseband, radios etc., you are stuck with Qualcomm. Or maybe Samsung's exynos, which isn't necessarily better.
- temac 10y ago
  Not sure how exaggerated this is, but even then, those vendor can very well have the bad idea to don't give a shit about compat between one chip and its next version. Given where there go and the associated ecosystem, I suspect they do exactly that... And then on PC too, you pretty much only have competition on the surface; then it's Intel and AMD. Given how modern CPU are SOC (and chipsets are now paired with CPUs, and with no 3rd party licence anymore), you have almost all of what matter in your system (for system compat) there...

by temac 10y ago

bubblethink 10y ago

>And more competition in the h/w space? Common, you already have an insane amount of competition for Android phones That competition is only on the surface. For SoC, GPU, baseband, radios etc., you are stuck with Qualcomm. Or maybe Samsung's exynos, which isn't necessarily better.

temac 10y ago
Not sure how exaggerated this is, but even then, those vendor can very well have the bad idea to don't give a shit about compat between one chip and its next version. Given where there go and the associated ecosystem, I suspect they do exactly that... And then on PC too, you pretty much only have competition on the surface; then it's Intel and AMD. Given how modern CPU are SOC (and chipsets are now paired with CPUs, and with no 3rd party licence anymore), you have almost all of what matter in your system (for system compat) there...