Re: Paravirtualization on VMware's Platform [VMI].

Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2009-09-18T00:53:33Z

On 09/17/09 17:34, Chris Wright wrote:
>> One of the options that I am contemplating is to drop the code from the
>> tip tree in this release cycle, and given that this should be a low risk
>> change we can remove it from Linus's tree later in the merge cycle.
>>
>> Let me know your views on this or if you think we should do this some
>> other way.
>>
> Typically we give time measured in multiple release cycles
> before deprecating a feature. This means placing an entry in
> Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt, and potentially
> adding some noise to warn users they are using a deprecated
> feature.
>

That's true if the feature has some functional effect on users. But at
first sight, VMI is really just an optimisation, and a non-VMI-equipped
kernel would be completely functionally equivalent, right?

On the other hand, there could well be a performance regression which
could affect users. However they're taking the explicit step of
withdrawing support for VMI, so I guess they can just take that in their
stride.

J