Re: policy on GPL'd drivers?

From: Narvi (narvi_at_haldjas.folklore.ee)
Date: 05/29/03

  • Next message: Robert Watson: "5.1-RELEASE TODO" 
    Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 14:34:38 +0300 (EEST)
To: Marcin Dalecki <mdcki@gmx.net>

    On Wed, 28 May 2003, Marcin Dalecki wrote:

    > Harti Brandt wrote:
    >
    > > MD>NO no and again no. This would repeat the same design mistake
    > > MD>that is already in Linux. On API level you DO NOT WANT versioning.
    > > MD>What you really want is: type signature cheking. Like for example
    > > MD>done through C++ symbol mangling rules. If you can't do it like that
    > > MD>then better leave it off as it is. Versioning in itself
    > >
    > > Type signature checking doesn't help you if the semantics of an API change
    > > without type changes. APIs should be semantically and syntactically stable
    > > in -STABLE. In -CURRENT they are expected to change. Managing a 3rd party
    > > driver for current is a nightmare, but may no be necessary once we have a
    > > -STABLE based on FreeBSD5.
    >
    > Sure sure. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Versioning doesn't help you
    > *anything* at all, but it is introducing new problems instead. Tons of them in
    > fact, if one looks at the Linux pain in this area. I suggested type signature
    > cheking in C++ style just to show how fundamentally flawed the idea of
    > version cheking is, but I can perfectly life with the situation as it is.
    >

    Uhh... it is not true that versioning does not help anything at all.
    i'm not sure what type signatures would help you with - knowing that
            foo(int, void *)
    still has teh same siganture doesn't tell you anything about what must be
    passed in as values what assumptions about call order with bar(void *)
    exist or anything else.

    > Symbol versioning is good to implement "multi-flavoured" single binary
    > objects (glibc uses it this way) and *not* for interface cheking.
    > Again my main point is versioning on the symbol level simply makes no sense and
    > worsens the situation. It's the fundamentally wrong approach to the actual
    > problem. The fact that Linux does something like this is only showing that Alan
    > Cox and Keith Owens didn't get it either and one shouldn't repeat the mistake.
    >

    uhhh... symbol versioning != library versioning and really, in case of
    glibc is pretty useless, very few if any glibc 2.2 progarms woiuld
    actually run on a 2.1 system, making it all pretty pointless

    > No more no less.
    >

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