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

[Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>]

On 4/10/2024 10:56 AM, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 10:39:11 -0700 Florian Fainelli wrote:
>>> Hm, we currently group by vendor but the fact it's a private device
>>> is probably more important indeed. For example if Google submits
>>> a driver for a private device it may be confusing what's public
>>> cloud (which I think/hope GVE is) and what's fully private.
>>>
>>> So we could categorize by the characteristic rather than vendor:
>>>
>>> drivers/net/ethernet/${term}/fbnic/
>>>
>>> I'm afraid it may be hard for us to agree on an accurate term, tho.
>>> "Unused" sounds.. odd, we don't keep unused code, "private"
>>> sounds like we granted someone special right not took some away,
>>> maybe "exclusive"? Or "besteffort"? Or "staging" :D  IDK.
>>
>> Do we really need that categorization at the directory/filesystem level?
>> cannot we just document it clearly in the Kconfig help text and under
>> Documentation/networking/?
> 
>  From the reviewer perspective I think we will just remember.
> If some newcomer tries to do refactoring they may benefit from seeing
> this is a special device and more help is offered. Dunno if a newcomer
> would look at the right docs.
> 
> Whether it's more "paperwork" than we'll actually gain, I have no idea.
> I may not be the best person to comment.

To me it is starting to feel like more paperwork than warranted, 
although I cannot really think about an "implied" metric that we could 
track, short of monitoring patches/bug reports coming from outside of 
the original driver authors/owners as an indication of how widely 
utilized a given driver is.

The number of changes to the driver between release cycles is not a good 
indication between a driver with few users presents the most agile 
configuration, but similarly, a very actively used driver with real 
world users may see a large number of changes between releases based 
upon its use.

What we need is some sort of popularity contest tracking :)
-- 
Florian