Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269863AbUIDJqC (ORCPT ); Sat, 4 Sep 2004 05:46:02 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269857AbUIDJp4 (ORCPT ); Sat, 4 Sep 2004 05:45:56 -0400 Received: from pengo.systems.pipex.net ([62.241.160.193]:40115 "EHLO pengo.systems.pipex.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269854AbUIDJpl (ORCPT ); Sat, 4 Sep 2004 05:45:41 -0400 Message-ID: <41398EBD.2040900@tungstengraphics.com> Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 10:45:33 +0100 From: Keith Whitwell User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8a3) Gecko/20040817 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Christoph Hellwig Cc: Dave Airlie , Jon Smirl , dri-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: New proposed DRM interface design References: <20040904004424.93643.qmail@web14921.mail.yahoo.com> <20040904102914.B13149@infradead.org> In-Reply-To: <20040904102914.B13149@infradead.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1478 Lines: 33 Christoph Hellwig wrote: > On Sat, Sep 04, 2004 at 01:51:24AM +0100, Dave Airlie wrote: > >>>Then drm_core would always be bundled with the OS. >>> >>>Is there any real advantage to spliting core/library and creating three >>>interface compatibily problems? >> >>Yes we only have one binary interface, between the core and module, this >>interface is minimal, so AGP won't go in it... *ALL* the core does is deal >>with the addition/removal of modules, the idea being that the interface is >>very minor and new features won't change it... > > > Umm, the Linux kernel isn't about minimizing interfaces. We don't link a > copy of scsi helpers into each scsi driver either, or libata into each sata > driver. But regular users don't tend to pull down new scsi or ata drivers in the same way that they do graphics drivers. Hence the concern of many drm developers to avoid introducing new failure modes in this process. People who'd never dream of upgrading their kernel have acquired the habit of pulling down up-to-date video drivers on a weekly or monthly basis. So, for sanity's sake, the DRI/DRM has been in the business of minimizing exposed interfaces, and for my money, should continue to be in that business. Keith - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/