Re: [kvmarm] [PATCH v5.1 0/2] KVM: ARM: Rename KVM_SET_DEVICE_ADDRESS

Scott Wood
2013-01-09T22:10:46Z

On 01/09/2013 03:37:20 PM, Alexander Graf wrote:
>
>
> Am 09.01.2013 um 22:15 schrieb Scott Wood <scottwood@freescale.com>:
>
> > I get that there's a tradeoff between getting something in now,
> versus waiting until the API is more refined. Tagging it with a
> particular ISA seems like an odd way of saying "soon to be
> deprecated", though. What happens if we're still squabbling over the
> perfect replacement API when we're trying to push PPC MPIC stuff in?
>
> Then we're the ones who have to come up with a good interface.

How about another bad one, with PPC in the name, and some pleas to
hurry things up? :-)

It's not as if there haven't been last-minute requests for API changes
on the PPC side in the past...

> > Perhaps the threshold for an API becoming "permanent" should not be
> acceptance into the tree, but rather the removal of an "experimental"
> tag (including a way of shutting off experimental APIs to make sure
> you're not depending on them). Sort of like CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL,
> except actually used for its intended purpose (distributions should
> have it *off* by default), and preferably managed at runtime. Sort
> of like drivers/staging, except for APIs rather than drivers.
> Changes at that point should require more justification than before
> merging, but would not have the strict compatibility requirement that
> non-experimental APIs have. This would make collaboration and
> testing easier on APIs that aren't ready to be permanent.
>
> This tag does exist. It's called "not in Linus' tree" :).

Which makes it a pain for multiple people to work on a new feature,
especially when it spans components such as KVM and QEMU, and means
that it gets less testing before the point of no return.

-Scott