Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] Change virtio-console to PCI_CLASS_SERIAL_OTHER

[Mark McLoughlin <markmc@redhat.com>]

On Sun, 2009-05-31 at 17:35 +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
> Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> > On Fri, 2009-05-29 at 00:45 +0300, Dor Laor wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> Nevertheless, as Anthony states, guest ABI should be rock stable.
> >> We should have mechanism (machine conf format++) that will enable us
> >> to configure pci addresses, cpuid entries, memory layout, device 
> >> existence (hpet, virtio-console,..), etc.
> >>
> >> Anyhow, I did sent a patch to allow virtio block to parametrized class 
> >> value -
> >> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-05/msg01189.html
> >> There wasn't a perfect match with finding the right interface to change 
> >> it, happy to hear
> >> other alternatives if you're not happy with it.
> >>     
> >
> > As I said, it's pointless to add something like this if, realistically,
> > it will never be used.
> >
> > So, taking the example of '-drive class=foo' ... a user who runs qemu
> > directly would have to know that when she updates from qemu-0.10.x to
> > qemu-0.11.x, she needs to use '-drive class=384' for ever more. I find
> > it hard to believe anyone will ever do that.
> >   
> 'She' is not a user, she is a developer.
> Users use management tools like libvirt below.
> Running qemu directly is complicated and error prone for
> manual/human users.

Agreed, which suggests (to me, at least) that the important thing to
think about is how management tools would use any support we add for
maintaining guest ABI.

Cheers,
Mark.