Return-path: Received: from smtp.codeaurora.org ([198.145.29.96]:52338 "EHLO smtp.codeaurora.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932241AbbLNLsE convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Mon, 14 Dec 2015 06:48:04 -0500 From: Kalle Valo To: Grant Grundler Cc: Johannes Berg , David Lin , "linux-wireless\@vger.kernel.org" , Chor Teck Law , Pete Hsieh Subject: Re: [PATCH v7] Add new mac80211 driver mwlwifi. References: <1448018530.3141.25.camel@sipsolutions.net> Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 13:47:57 +0200 In-Reply-To: (Grant Grundler's message of "Fri, 11 Dec 2015 16:46:28 -0800") Message-ID: <8737v545g2.fsf@kamboji.qca.qualcomm.com> (sfid-20151214_124812_567072_11D94443) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Grant Grundler writes: > Sorry for the late response...just one point below > > On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 3:22 AM, Johannes Berg > wrote: > > > +#define MWL_DRV_NAME     KBUILD_MODNAME > > +#define MWL_DRV_VERSION       "10.3.0.14" > > versions like that are generally fairly useless since you don't update > them for every commit ... > > > When backporting to other kernel trees, it's extremely handy to have a > DRV_VERSION. > > Checking if a particular kernel build has the expected driver version trivial. >  "mod_info" dumps the driver version for modules (which this will usually be > too). > > And yes, it won't get updated for every commit only because other version > control might encapsulate those changes. Not every distro makes their build > versioning accessible to outsiders. So it's still helpful even if not perfect. > > Marvell can update this every time they resync with their own internal > versions. But the problem is that you cannot really trust this driver version string. I found a perfect example from another Marvell driver: 5e6e3a92b9a4c drivers/net/wireless/mwifiex/main.c (Bing Zhao 2011-03-21 18:00:50 -0700 25) #define VERSION "1.0" So nobody has updated that version string since the initial commit from 2011 and that driver has had over 900 non-merge commits after that. Because of bad cases like this I think having a driver specific versions in in-tree drivers are just noise and unnecessary extra work. When porting a driver to another tree git commit ids, release tag names or git-describe output are much better ways to identify the driver version. -- Kalle Valo