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May 9, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UDI Reference Implementation Open Sourced

Available at SourceForge – contains UDI implementation source code for SCO UnixWare, SCO OpenServer, Linux, Sun Solaris OSes and other code

Project UDI – May 9, 2001 – Members of Project UDI today announced the open source release of the UDI (Uniform Driver Interface) reference implementation at http://projectudi.sourceforge.net/. This first public release of UDI code is the culmination of a multi-company development effort designed to provide device driver portability for existing and future system configurations. Based on the Version 1.0.1 UDI specification, the updated code base reflects the culmination of approximately three years of development and testing to validate the specification on a variety of operating systems and using a variety of device drivers. The latest UDI specification as well as full detail on Project UDI is available from http://www.project-udi.org/.

Released under a BSD-style open source license, the UDI reference implementation is available for all interested parties to download, examine, use, or modify for their purposes. Project UDI is also interested in promoting participation OS vendors, Independent Hardware Vendors (IHVs), driver developers, or other parties interested in the development or porting of UDI to new platforms or adding additional driver support. Information on joining the Project UDI open source effort can be found at http://projectudi.sourceforge.net or at the Project UDI web site at http://www.project-udi.org. Current efforts are underway in the areas of network protocol support, USB, and additional areas such as Infiniband; participation by all interested parties is welcome.

With the open sourcing of this reference code, Project UDI is providing a functional and portable base upon which both system and I/O vendors may reliably implement high performance, portable device drivers and device driver support. The code release has been validated by the inclusion of several UDI reference environment implementations on the SCO UnixWare, SCO OpenServer, Linux, and Sun Solaris operating system platforms as well as including functioning driver source code for UDI NIC and HBA drivers and various tools and test fixtures to assist UDI developers.

“This is an important milestone in regards to Project UDI. While the specifications have been openly published, this is the first time the source code to working UDI implementations has been made available for anyone to examine, use, or port to other platforms,” said Kurt Gollhardt, chairman of Project UDI, “Driver developers can use the released code to develop portable drivers and OS vendors can freely take the UDI environments already released in source form and port them to their Oses to add UDI support.”

According to Chris Herzog, president of Software Technologies Group, Inc., the developers of the UDI Linux implementation, “This is a major UDI milestone in that it demonstrates the key point of openness that has been part of Project UDI from the beginning. It provides OS vendors, IHVs, and driver developers a portable, functional base to develop on and start to reap the benefits of UDI. UDI is open to all interested parties and this is just one way the contributors to Project UDI are backing up that statement of openness of both the specification and the functional code that implements it.”

Michael Orlovsky, Manager Systems Architecture for Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems – Syracuse stated "Device driver portability preserves the software investment and facilitates the continued commercial technology refreshment of our advanced tactical systems."

By developing to a single device driver interface, companies can realize significant savings in device driver development and testing costs. It also helps speed time-to-market of new devices, and allows manufacturers to allocate development resources on improving device performance, features, functionality, and quality. UDI supports today's key I/O technologies and is designed with an extensible architecture that can easily accommodate future I/O technologies and products.

Project UDI is a multi-company open development group dedicated to developing standardized device driver interfaces for the computer I/O technologies of today and tomorrow. More information on Project UDI may be found at: http://www.project-udi.org/ or by contacting one of the member companies listed below.

For more information on companies mentioned in this article:

Project UDI home page
http://www.project-udi.org

project UDI at SourceForge
http://projectudi.sourceforge.net

Lockheed Martin Corporation
http://www.lockheedmartin.com

Software Technologies Group, Inc.
http://www.stg.com