Patent ID: 7203774

Claim:
A computer system comprising: a processor; a memory storage unit; a system bus; a plurality of proprietary buses; an operating system comprising a kernel, said kernel comprising a kernel device file system monitoring and publishing system for detecting and publishing availability of a plurality of system level devices in said computer system; a plurality of subscribing user application programs communicatively only interfacing with said kernel device file system to subscribe to access said plurality of system level devices; and a device path decoding module for decoding device specific locations of said plurality of system level devices in said kernel device file system, wherein said kernel device file system logically defines said system level devices in a tree-like format to form a device tree, and said device tree includes a primary node corresponding to a bus driver that is coupled to said system bus, such that the kernel device file system provides an interface between the kernel and the bus driver, wherein said device tree includes a plurality of secondary nodes corresponding to proprietary peripheral bus drivers coupled to said plurality of proprietary buses, and said kernel device file system further comprises a device semantics locking module for allowing concurrent dynamic reconfiguration of different branches of said device tree.