Device Driver Stability

[Don Mitchell]

Our center's computing environment is primarily based on SUN's, and we use
many of them to support laboratory equipment.  I am very annoyed by the
fact that the device driver interface seems to change in every point
release (4.0, 4.0.3, 4.1 ...).  This is a major problem for some of us.
We have to support scanners, GPIB devices of various sorts, DR11 devices,
and strange frame buffers.  A lot of these guys don't keep up with current
SunOS very fast, but I think SUN must be blamed for gratuitous changes to
the kernel in this area.

If it were some other workstation, I wouldn't even bother to complain.
But Sun seems committed to open systems and good support for UNIX.  I hope
they will keep our plight in mind.