Re: [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] User-space requirements for accelerator drivers

Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-09-12T07:46:52Z

Em Sun, 12 Sep 2021 07:27:55 +0300
Leon Romanovsky <leon@kernel.org> escreveu:

> > What if we're dealing with a device that only exists in a handful of
> > machines though ? Would distributions accept the burden of packaging
> > corresponding userspace code, and maintaining the packages, when only a
> > handful of people in the world will use it ? It's a genuine question.
>
> Fedora, Debian and OpenSuSE are volunteer based distributions, they
> accept new packages, which need to be prepared (or asked to be
> prepared) by such vendors.
>
> There is no "accept the burden of packaging corresponding userspace code,
> and maintaining the packages", it is on package maintainer who can or
> can't be associated with distribution.

There is a dead lock issue, though: if we're willing to have a policy
of only accepting a new Kernel API after Fedora/Debian/openSuse accepts
its userspace counterpart, it would mean, in practice, that no new
APIs will ever be added, as I'm pretty sure most Fedora/Debian/openSuse
maintainers will refuse an application that depends on a non-accepted
Kernel API.

As a maintainer of several Fedora packages myself, I would refuse
any attempts of adding support for a non-accepted kernel API on
the packages I maintain.

-

Also, it makes no sense to add support on such general-purpose
distros for some hardware that will never be supported by it.

See, there are, for instance, some types of hardware that are
specific for some industry, like for instance, the CAN bus.
While CAN buses remain restricted to vehicles, it won't make any
sense to crowd a general purpose distro with support for such
hardware. Such distros are not certified with ASIL. So, they
aren't allowed by law to be used inside vehicles.

Thanks,
Mauro