we need a new way to access serial ports

[Chris Brannon]

> Is there any way you could open the port from kernel space as though you
> were in user space and just write to it without taking exclusive
> control?

It's not particularly easy to do that.
Plus, we need a device file, which may not be available when Speakup is
loaded.
If we could use device files, we could also work with other kinds of
serial hardware, like USB-to-serial converters and certain PCI cards.

Personally, I'd love to see a version of Speakup that runs entirely in
user-space.  It would be far more flexible and future-proof.
I'd start the project, but I have too many unanswered questions.
E.G., how does a user-space daemon know when a new character has been
written to the console?
Could the daemon be written in such a way that it can run from initramfs?
If so, it could still be available early in the boot process.
But those are just my musings, and I know that quite a few folks wouldn't
be happy with a user-space implementation.

-- Chris