Re: Xen & VMI?

Ingo Molnar
2007-03-06T17:12:26Z

* Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@goop.org> wrote:

> The whole point of pv_ops is to allow the hypervisors interfaces to
> evolve at their own pace without having to constrain the core kernel's
> development

unfortunately that's a self-serving oxymoron, contradicted by real life
;) Pretty much the only way to ensure a sane ABI is to do it like we do
it with the Linux syscall ABI:

_to have only one_

We do not let OpenOffice or Evolution have its own separate ABI to Linux
so that they 'can evolve at their own pace'... We want them to cooperate
and come up with a common ABI (or rather, we try to come up with the
right syscalls ourselves), because divering, overlapping ABIs are a huge
PITA.

We do not unify their pointlessly diverging ABIs to within the kernel
via say office_ops (while we could) because that's crappy on its face.
Hypervisors arent in any way different, they just _think_ they are
special because they are relatively new. But hey, i dont expect you to
concede this point ;)

Ingo