Tuesday, November 24, 2015

"When will the driver be signed?" (as of 1/3/16)

1/3/16 Update: The new method of mouse acceleration is working well enough (and doesn't require signing/test mode) that I think we're going to abandon the thought of getting the old driver signed. The text below was written 11/24/15.

A common question I am getting is "how close are you to getting the driver signed?"  Here's the current status:

ReactOS is an interesting project that has a driver signing certificate.  They are willing to (and have in the past) sign open source drivers that are not malicious, don't subvert DRM, don't subvert security features - our favorite mouse accel driver fits the criteria.  I made initial contact with them, and they indicated that we might be able to get the driver signed with their cert.  However...



The most recent version of povohat's driver (b8) is finicky.  Some people who try to install it get a cryptic error message (code 10, or code 45).  When I've helped people get through those errors, the only thing I could do was give them the previous version of the driver (b7), which has universally worked.  So, what's new in b8?  Per my understanding, povohat rewrote some sections to use the most up to date function calls that Microsoft wants for drivers.  B8 was a future-proofing update that was intended to make it work with later versions of Windows that have yet to come out.

I really don't want to have the ReactOS people sign b8 and run into these errors.  I'd much rather have a version of the driver that installs reliably before we get it signed.  Similarly, I don't think I want to have them sign the old version of the driver and then go bug them again with b9.

So, long story short: we need to bug povohat.

And if the ReactOS signing certificate falls through, I will likely start to investigate crowdfunding options.

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