Re: [PATCH v3] Add MO(mod objs) variable to process ext modules with subdirs

["Daniel Walker (danielwa)" <danielwa@cisco.com>]

On Thu, Apr 11, 2024 at 01:38:20PM +0200, Nicolas Schier wrote:
> Hi Valerii,
> 
> thanks for your patch.  I know several non-upstream kernel developers
> that would like to see support for out-of-source builds of external
> kmods (and we developed several work-arounds at AVM as well); but please
> be aware that patches that don't fix or enhance the in-tree kernel/kmod
> build but only add feature for out-of-tree stuff, are rarely accepted.
> 

If that were true we would not have driver/uio/ for example. It seems like
Cisco and NVM should work together produce a solution.

You could run into this issue even with entirely in tree modules. For example,
we may have a v6.6 kernel but we need some modules from v5.15 for some incompatibility
reason in v6.6. Then we may build the v5.15 modules as out of tree modules
against the v6.6 kernel.

You also have just normal developers making kernel modules which always start as
out of tree modules before they are upstreamed. Those modules could be any level
of complexity.

I don't think it make sense to view this as strictly enhancing large of the tree
modules with no upstream potential.

Daniel