Re: Xen 4.3 development update

[George Dunlap <george.dunlap@eu.citrix.com>]

On 11/04/13 10:33, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Thu, 2013-04-11 at 10:28 +0100, George Dunlap wrote:
>> On 10/04/13 17:41, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
>>>> = Timeline =
>>>>
>>>> We are planning on a 9-month release cycle.  Based on that, below are
>>>> our estimated dates:
>>>> * Feature freeze: 25 March 2013
>>>> * Code freezing point: 15 April 2013
>>> Is it possible to extend this? One of the reviewers (Ian) is just
>>> now able to look at code and review. That means the developers have
>>> only 3 business days to repost the changes.
>> So when I said "freezing point", I meant, "we will start rejecting
>> features".  Each feature will need to be considered individually.  I
>> think, for example, that PVH is not going to make it -- it touches too
>> much code, and is just not in good enough shape to get in as it is.  But
>> AFAICT the TMEM stuff should be fine next week.
>>
>> IanC knows that he's on the hot path, and so will be working double-time
>> over the next few days to review / commit patches.
> FWIW for the tmem stuff specifically IanJ seems to have a handle on the
> review so it's not high in my queue.
>
>> We had a talk yesterday about the Linux stubdomain stuff -- that's a bit
>> less clear.  Changes to libxl should be in "linux-stubdom-only" paths,
>> so little risk of breaking libxl functionality.  On the other hand, it
>> makes a lot of changes to the build system, adding moderate risk to an
>> important component; and it hasn't had wide public testing yet, so
>> there's no telling how reliable it will be.  On the other other hand,
>> it's a blocker for being able to switch to qemu-upstream by default,
>> which was one of our key goals for 4.3; that may or may not be worth
>> risking slipping the release a bit for.
> I think we switched the default for the non-stubdom case already (or
> were planning too!). I think this is sufficient for 4.3.

I've been thinking about this -- wouldn't this mean that if you do the 
"default" thing and just install a Windows guest in an HVM domain (not 
thinking about qemu or whatever), that now I"m stuck and I *can't* use 
stubdoms (because Windows doesn't like the hardware changing that much 
under its feet)?  That doesn't sound like a very good user experience to me.

  -George