OSx86 Driver Development Questions

[MoiX]

First let me say I hope this doesn't descend into a "can you write me a xxxx driver for my xxxx card" type thread as it isn't supposed to be that sort of thread but I have some questions regarding development of drivers (& I guess modified apps) for OSx86 which I haven't so far been able to search & find answers to.

 

* This also isn't a grumble on the excellent development work undertaken so far (& in progress) by the many obviously gifted developers out there who through hard work with no gain other than the satisfaction of a job well done have gifted OSX to the likes of end users with x86 PC's like myself.

 

OK the questions (as this thread is aimed at the layman, if any developers who [i hope] wish to respond could do so in simpleton terms then it'd be much appreciated by me and I guess many others who wouldn't know what do do with source code if it slapped them in the face

 

1) What makes development of new drivers for OSXx86 [that are normally unsupported by apple] hardware difficult compared to say driver development for different flavours of Linux? I did assume when I first started getting into OSx86 about 6 months ago that due to it being based on the opensource Darwin which itself is based on FreeBSD and given the fact that the likes of Nvidia release source code (& compiled code) for FreeBSD that it wouldn't be too tricky or take long to build complete nforce & forceware packages for the OSXx86 Kernal in the same way linux developers seem able to? I assume other hardware manufacterers (such as ATI, 3com, VIA etc..) also release source code?

 

2) Is it a case of maybe not having access to an Apple OSX/Darwin SDK to aid modifying & recompiling released FreeBSD source code to OSXx86 code?

 

3) Would it be a good idea to create a database (in say a series of long but concise threads with no waffle) of device id's for each manufacturers gfx, network, chipset offerings to aid those that are say writing a package for the nforce 430 or 630 chipset to have all known device id's (that should work) easily to hand?

 

4) Am I stupid for wanting to know the answers to these questions?