[RFC] VMI for Xen?

[Anthony Liguori <aliguori@us.ibm.com>]

I'm sure everyone has seen the drop of VMI patches for Linux at this 
point, but just in case, the link is included below.

I've read this version of the VMI spec and have made my way through most 
of the patches.  While I wasn't really that impressed with the first 
spec wrt Xen, the second version seems to be much more palatable.  
Specifically, the code inlining and afterburner-style padding seems like 
a really promising approach to native-speed single kernel images.  Also, 
this version seems much more friendly to p2m.

There are still a few things missing (like guest DMA support) but I 
think the basic ideas are pretty sane.  So what does everyone else 
think?  Is there anything within VMI that would inhibit some of Xen's 
optimizations?  Are there any disadvantages to a VMI-style approach to 
the subarch changes?

How close are we to being able to merge our stuff with mainline?  Have 
we gotten feedback yet on how hard this is going to be?  Would VMI be an 
easier approach to inclusion in mainline?

Just thought it would be prudent to start a discussion here, at least, 
about it...

http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/3/13/140

Regards,

Anthony Liguori