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Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:46:47 -0500
To: Olof Johansson <olof@lixom.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/4]: powerpc/cell spidernet ethtool -i version number
	info.
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From: linas@austin.ibm.com (Linas Vepstas)
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>, Jens Osterkamp <Jens.Osterkamp@de.ibm.com>,
	James K Lewis <jklewis@us.ibm.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
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Hi Olof,

Olof Johansson <olof@lixom.net> writes:
> On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 12:11:17PM -0500, Linas Vepstas wrote:
> 
> > This patch adds version information as reported by 
> > ethtool -i to the Spidernet driver.
> 
> Why does a driver that's in the mainline kernel need to have a version
> number besides the kernel version?

I'll let Jim be the primary defender. From what I can tell, "that's the
way its done".  For example:

linux-2.6.18-rc3-mm2 $ grep MODULE_VERSION */*/*.c |wc
     164     245    9081

> I can understand it for drivers like e1000 that Intel maintain outside
> of the kernel as well. But spidernet is a fully mainline maintained
> driver, right?

Yes, the spidernet is a Linux-kernel only driver.

--linas

p.s. very strange, but I did not see your original email;  
only saw Jim's reply.