From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>
Subject: Re: Xen & VMI?
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 18:18:13 +0100
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To: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@goop.org>
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* Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@goop.org> wrote:

> > My suggestion would be for Linux to make only a /single/ external =

> > ABI promise: VMI. (and we can extend it with higher-level paravirt =

> > ops, etc.)
> =

> "VMI" is not a promise, it's just three letters.  It doesn't even mean =

> the same thing now as it did 12 months ago.  Turning "VMI" from three =

> letters into anything remotely like a promise is a huge amount of work =

> which requires:
> =

>    1. someone actually sit down and fully document what all those
>       entrypoints are going to do
>    2. everyone to implement them
>    3. someone to test that all the implementations conform to the
>       document (bearing in mind that if anyone is going to go to all
>       this effort, they're going to use this with non-Linux guests)
>    4. and repeat all that every subsequent update

There's no process needed. The only thing needed is to treat the Linux =

implementation as the reference design, documentation and specification. =

Treat it as we treat the Linux system calls. We promise not to change =

them. There's no "process" for that either, other than our promise, our =

taste and our best efforts - plus the backing of all distributions and =

the threat of a few million users who start yelling (or worse) if we =

break it ;)

	Ingo