Re: [PATCH 0/13 v7] PCI: Linux kernel SR-IOV support

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 03:07:23PM +0800, Zhao, Yu wrote:
> Greg KH wrote:
>> On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 10:37:54AM +0800, Jike Song wrote:
>>> Jesse Barnes wrote:
>>>> Given a respin of 10-13 I think it's reasonable to merge this into 
>>>> 2.6.29, but I'd be much happier about it if we got some driver code 
>>>> along with it, so as not to have an unused interface sitting around for 
>>>> who knows how many releases.  Is that reasonable?  Do you know if any of 
>>>> the corresponding PF/VF driver bits are ready yet?
>>> Hi Jesse, 
>>> Yu Zhao has posted a patch set with subject "SR-IOV driver example" at 
>>> November 26, which illustrated the usage of SR-IOV API in Intel 82576 
>>> VF/PF
>>> drivers;-)
>> Yes, but that driver was soundly rejected by the network driver
>> maintainers, so I wouldn't go around showing that as your primary
>> example of how to use this interface :)
>> The point is valid, I don't think these apis should go into the tree
>> without a driver or some other code using them.  Otherwise they make no
>> sense at all to have in-tree.
>
> I agree the point is valid, but on another hand this is a 'the chicken & 
> the egg' problem -- if we don't have the SR-IOV base, people who are 
> developing PF drivers can not get their changes in-tree. Maybe they are 
> holding the patches and waiting on the infrastructure... :-)

Are they?  They can both go in at the same time, like almost every other
api addition to the kernel, right?

thanks,

greg k-h