Device driver in Java

Panchaleswar Nayak points to an interesting research paper about Writing Solaris Device Drivers in Java. I find this development very promising. You only have to write your drivers once for all platforms that implements the Squawk Java virtual machine. The next step to drive this concept would be the definition of an common generic interface between drivers and the operating system integrated in different operating systems outside the Solaris world. You would be able to use the same driver in different operating system without recompilation. This would be great help in the competition against the windows ecosphere with their overhelming amount of drivers, as the fragmentation of the unix market from the look of driver developers would disappear.