From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Anders Fugmann Subject: Re: Fixed proken MARK target in POM. Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 16:28:12 +0100 Sender: netfilter-devel-admin@lists.netfilter.org Message-ID: <3E1EE68C.7030004@fugmann.dhs.org> References: <3E1D7419.1060502@fugmann.dhs.org> <20030110140024.GU1353@sunbeam.de.gnumonks.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: netfilter-devel@lists.netfilter.org Return-path: To: Harald Welte In-Reply-To: <20030110140024.GU1353@sunbeam.de.gnumonks.org> Errors-To: netfilter-devel-admin@lists.netfilter.org List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Id: netfilter-devel.vger.kernel.org Harald Welte wrote: > On Thu, Jan 09, 2003 at 02:07:37PM +0100, Anders Fugmann wrote: > > >>The patch maintains backward compability, and I request that this patch >>is applied to mainstream (and pushed to the Andrea for kernel >>inclusion), > > > 1) Where is the compatibility? I cannot see how this code change would > ensure that > a) old, unpatched kernel works with new, patched userspace > b) new, patched kernel works with old, unpatched userspace > Those two conditions need to be fulfilled, otherwise we cannot make a > change during the stable kernel series. I meant compability in form of userspace syntax, but I will make a new patch that sorts out the things above (if possible). > > 2) Which Andrea are you talking about? Therer is no Andrea involved in > netfilter/iptabls updates. Andrea Arcangeli (2.4.x maintainer, just to recite what you already know), but as you wrote in the previous mail, all patches will go through netfilter-devel (And let the core team choose what to have included in the kernel). > > >>as I as a software developer of a firewall cannot ask users >>of the software to appliy patches to POM. > > > I regard this as critic to my recent patch-o-matic announcement, where I > was asking people to use patch-o-matic. I was talking about Actually not, but thats ok. > bugfixes/updates which are in 2.4.20 (or 2.4.21-preX)... but people are > still running older kernels than that... and they should indeed use > patch-o-matic for the netfilter fixes. Agreed. Compability between kernel and userspace should be maintained no matter version, and patches exist in POM for users of older kernels. > > Apart from that, everything in patch-o-matic are new features or > extensions, which are either not fully stable or we strongly doubt that > they are useful for the big public. And if somebody wants to test one > of those non-standard extensions, we can ask people to use patch-o-matic. Yes. I'm aware of that. My question is "How can a patch be proven stable enough to be included, and is the functionality provided 'importent' enough for the general public? Regards Anders Fugmann