Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750773AbVLAJDX (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 Dec 2005 04:03:23 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751605AbVLAJDX (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 Dec 2005 04:03:23 -0500 Received: from embla.aitel.hist.no ([158.38.50.22]:6086 "HELO embla.aitel.hist.no") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1750773AbVLAJDW (ORCPT ); Thu, 1 Dec 2005 04:03:22 -0500 Message-ID: <438EBD21.5050907@aitel.hist.no> Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 10:06:41 +0100 From: Helge Hafting User-Agent: Debian Thunderbird 1.0.7 (X11/20051017) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Randy.Dunlap" CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/9] x86-64 put current in r10 References: <20051130042118.GA19112@kvack.org> <438D4905.9F023405@users.sourceforge.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2007 Lines: 44 Randy.Dunlap wrote: >Just for the sake of understanding the current kernel release >process, when would something like this be acceptable/possible? >Would it require a Linux 3.0 version, or at least a 2.8? > > No. It has been stated many times that there is no guarantee about binary compatibility. So this sort of change (breaking out-of-tree assembly or other code) can happen at anytime, even in a stable series, even if the reason for the change isn't very strong. You will even find those who want to break binary compatibility occationally on purpose, just to get people firmly off the idea that they can depend on such things. The reason for the last attitude is the preference for open source. Vendors may like binary drivers, but they have a history of bad maintainership, especially when the product no longer sell. Open source is then useful in that any interested programmer can fix things. That's almost impossible with binary stuff. Sort of "if they want to be difficult to us, then we'll be difficult to them." Getting out-of-tree code into the kernel tree is one way of avoiding trouble, because then the people making changes will try hard not to break anything. This is obviously not an option for non-gpl code, search the mail archives for how many times kernel changes broke the binary modules of vmware, nvidia and others. Policy is that those who keep their code to themselves gets to play catchup - a lot. Their trouble is a non-issue. Exceptions have sometimes been made in order to not break the kernel for large amounts of people. Apparently, the number of people using nvidia/vmware/out-of-tree assembly isn't considered large enough, or at least the changes have been more important than their troubles. Helge Hafting - 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/