[Someone]

As http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1604.0/03993.html states, you can get binary stability for in the order of five years from the likes of Red Hat and SuSe.

I don't know where you can get binary stability for decades, but it wouldn't surprise me if some military applications guaranteed that.

Since there's nothing stopping suppliers from selling it, there apparently isn't that much demand for it.

[eekthecat]

Stable API or not, every time there is a new NVIDIA driver, my Win10 boxes work and my Fedora/Ubuntu ones break. I doubt Microsoft is asking NVIDIA to keep their driver inside Microsoft repositories.

[mixedCase]

> Stable API or not, every time there is a new NVIDIA driver, my Win10 boxes work and my Fedora/Ubuntu ones break

Use a distro that ships the Nvidia driver in its repos or a repository that builds for your distro's kernel specifically.

[708145_]

> As http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1604.0/03993.html states, you can get binary stability for in the order of five years from the likes of Red Hat and SuSe.

Yes but why can't the kernel provide a stable interface? The stable_api_nonsense.txt is just nonsense for me.

[avar]

Because the kernel developers aren't interested in assuming the maintenance burden of maintaining (possibly many incompatible and versioned) interfaces purely for the benefit of users who maintain out of tree drivers.

[mixmastamyk]

I'm surprised driver interfaces are still changing so frequently. Ten years ago perhaps, but they're not largely sorted today twenty five years+ after Linux debut?

[planteen]

There have been general architecture changes. Look at DRM as a better way to do rendering versus the old Unix way, for example.

[mixmastamyk]

Sure, but isn't that ten years old already? It's not like these big changes come every month.

[DonbunEf7]

Not "can't," but "won't." It's not considered worth the effort; the technical benefits are too great when doing it the current way. The political side effects are a great bonus but not the main motive.