[cpeterso]

AMD should move their HAL code into their Windows driver, making it a superset of the Linux driver. AMD would get to reduce driver code duplication and Linux kernel developers don't need to merge the AMD's ugly Linux/Windows HAL.

[wolfgke]

> AMD should move their HAL code into their Windows driver, making it a superset of the Linux driver.

This might theoretically make sense if the Linux subsystem was very stable over many years. Practice shows that the Windows interfaces are what are a lot more stable over the years and changes in them are communicated for a long time beforehand so that hardware vendors can begin changing their drivers long beforehand.

[Kadin]

Regardless of one's thoughts on AMD, I think this is broadly true. Microsoft may do a lot of things poorly, but one thing they are good at (arguably, the only thing they're good at, hell maybe the key to their success, really) is maintaining compatibility and not breaking stuff.

[mixedCase]

This is explained here: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/stable_api_nonsense...

Linux maintains compatibility by fixing the driver themselves when they break it. Microsoft cannot (actually, can, and does) break their interfaces since they don't control the drivers.

This allows Linux to keep improving without breaking things in production; while Microsoft has to either maintain huge backward compatibility abstractions for changes, go YOLO and break stuff (often unknowingly) or abstain from improving their OS.