[pjjpo]

In terms of (2), I wonder if it's even possible to write a driver without such a document. In the end, the vendor is on the foot for the driver for major platforms (let's assume Linux) - if they can write a Linux driver without a similar spec to this doc, then the doc probably doesn't need to exist since the business wins from hobbyist drivers will be low. If they can't though, then it's just a matter of formatting an internal document for public consumption - the doc itself has to be maintained anyways so the cost seems lower and maybe reasonable. I have a feeling the doc is necessary but I am not specialized in the field.

Assumptions, fair or not, about (1) seems more likely somehow.

[sour-taste]

Didn't all the asahi Linux Mac m1 drivers essentially get reverse engineered with little to no support from apple and no public docs? If I'm remembering correctly then I guess it's possible with enough effort and reverse engineering skills

[stefan_]

It was reverse engineered from a driver. With no driver and purely some PCIE device registers mapped into memory you might as well be trying to guess lottery numbers.

[sour-taste]

I guess the driver was the one that runs on Mac that they were able to refer to? Not sure you have any links to blog posts about this process it sounds so cool

[morganw]

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39385382 Here's Hector Martin (marcan) talking about their tooling: https://asahilinux.org/2021/08/progress-report-august-2021/

Running macOS in a hypervisor controlled from a second machine (proxy mode + verbose==on) to watch drivers talk to the hardware:

https://asahilinux.org/docs/sw/m1n1-user-guide/#running-a-ma...

[sour-taste]

Thanks for taking the time to round up these posts for me!

[nicce]

But it took 5 years. And since the first model, there are many others. It is huge work.