[npelly]

Agree. Driver abstraction layers are not a cure-all. First, OEMs want to customize the O/S above the driver level. Second, a strict DAL with a canonical O/S on top slows hardware innovation. All devices end up functionally the same because they have to fit the same DAL, and they can't customize the O/S to take advantage of new HW.

Take Android Wear. It took the DAL approach. As a result, O/S upgrades are immediately available to all devices (awesome!). But there is very little differentiation - all Wear devices use the same small set of SoC's and peripherals, and are functionally the same. Google decides on HW innovations.

(This was true of Wear 1.0, not sure if changed with Wear 2.0)