Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760174AbYFRClG (ORCPT ); Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:41:06 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1759656AbYFRCky (ORCPT ); Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:40:54 -0400 Received: from iabervon.org ([66.92.72.58]:58752 "EHLO iabervon.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1759626AbYFRCky (ORCPT ); Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:40:54 -0400 Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:40:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Daniel Barkalow To: Greg KH cc: Ingo Molnar , David Miller , arjan@linux.intel.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, torvalds@linux-foundation.org, akpm@linux-foundation.org, tglx@linutronix.de, linville@tuxdriver.com, davej@redhat.com Subject: Re: Oops report for the week preceding June 16th, 2008 In-Reply-To: <20080617224856.GA16933@suse.de> Message-ID: References: <4856AFDF.5080901@linux.intel.com> <20080617092023.GA20621@elte.hu> <20080617.022652.76635616.davem@davemloft.net> <20080617153356.GA3510@elte.hu> <20080617175414.GA9866@suse.de> <20080617224856.GA16933@suse.de> User-Agent: Alpine 1.00 (LNX 882 2007-12-20) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1834 Lines: 36 On Tue, 17 Jun 2008, Greg KH wrote: > On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 02:43:02PM -0400, Daniel Barkalow wrote: > > > > On the other hand, it would be good if there were a way to include > > unstable APIs in the mainline kernel so that they could get some exposure > > before they're set in stone, and that would also eliminate that reason for > > keeping drivers out so long. > > That's exactly what the documentation in Documentation/ABI is there for. > Document your "experimental" API, along with any userspace programs that > are using it, and work to try to finalize it. Documentation/ABI/README doesn't list an "experimental" level of stability. I suppose a developer with an API they expect to change could create it as "obsolete" (since the experimental verison will get removed when the real one is done), but that's a little odd as a use of that category. Also, that doesn't stop people from looking through sysfs for useful stuff they expect to be undocumented but easy enough to figure out, and starting to use it without realizing that it's not intended to be maintained. And the "stable/syscalls" entry implies that all syscalls are stable when they get merged, which means that a patch that adds a syscall can't stablize in mainline. If there are people, like the Nouveau developers, using the instability of their userspace API as a reason not to submit their drivers, and we would ideally like the drivers to stabilize with mainline exposure, then we need to do something more to address these authors' concerns. -Daniel *This .sig left intentionally blank* -- 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/