Re: [net-next PATCH 00/15] eth: fbnic: Add network driver for Meta Platforms Host Network Interface

[Jiri Pirko <jiri@resnulli.us>]

Tue, Apr 09, 2024 at 10:03:06PM CEST, alexander.duyck@gmail.com wrote:
>On Tue, Apr 9, 2024 at 11:55 AM Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 09, 2024 at 11:38:59AM -0700, Alexander Duyck wrote:
>> > > > phenomenon where if we even brushed against block of upstream code
>> > > > that wasn't being well maintained we would be asked to fix it up and
>> > > > address existing issues before we could upstream any patches.
>> > >
>> > > Well, Intel has it's own karma problems in the kernel community. :(
>> >
>> > Oh, I know. I resisted the urge to push out the driver as "idgaf:
>> > Internal Device Generated at Facebook" on April 1st instead of
>> > "fbnic"
>>
>> That would have been hilarious!
>>
>> > to poke fun at the presentation they did at Netdev 0x16 where they
>> > were trying to say all the vendors should be implementing "idpf" since
>> > they made it a standard.
>>
>> Yes, I noticed this also. For all the worries I've heard lately about
>> lack of commonality/etc it seems like a major missed ecosystem
>> opportunity to have not invested in an industry standard. From what I
>> can see fbnic has no hope of being anything more than a one-off
>> generation for Meta. Too many silicon design micro-details are exposed
>> to the OS.
>
>I know. The fact is we aren't trying to abstract away anything as that
>would mean a larger firmware blob. That is the problem with an
>abstraction like idpf is that it just adds more overhead as you have
>to have the firmware manage more of the control plane.
>
>> > It all depends on your definition of being extractive. I would assume
>> > a "consumer" that is running a large number of systems and is capable
>> > of providing sophisticated feedback on issues found within the kernel,
>> > in many cases providing fixes for said issues, or working with
>> > maintainers on resolution of said issues, is not extractive.
>>
>> I don't know, as I said there is some grey scale.
>>
>> IMHO it is not appropriate to make such decisions based on some
>> company wide metric. fbnic team alone should be judged and shouldn't
>> get a free ride based on the other good work Meta is doing. Otherwise
>> it turns into a thing where bigger/richer companies just get to do
>> whatever they want because they do the most "good" in aggregate.
>
>The problem here in this case is that I am pretty much the heart of
>the software driver team with a few new hires onboarding the next
>couple months. People were asking why others were jumping to my
>defense, well if we are going to judge the team they are mostly
>judging me. I'm just hoping my reputation has spoken for itself
>considering I was making significant contributions to the drivers even
>after I have gone through several changes of employer.

Let me clearly state two things this thread it running around all the
time:
1) This has nothing to do with you Alex, at all. If John Doe was the one
   pushing this, from my perspective, everything would be exactly the same.
2) This is not about selling devices. I already stresses that out
   multiple times, yet people are still talking about selling. This is
   about possibility of outside-Meta person to meet the device in real
   world with real usecase (not emulated, that does not make any sense).