[openib-general] [RFC] remove kernel drivers from svn

[Robert Walsh]

On Thu, 2006-04-20 at 11:00 -0700, Roland Dreier wrote:
>     James> Why are they using private repositories? Will moving to
>     James> your git tree change this?
> 
> Don't know why.  Moving to git doesn't fix this, but at least it
> emphasizes the "upstream or bust" message and gets rid of the
> confusing svn repository, which doesn't have the latest and greatest
> anyway and distracts from testing upstream.

I can't speak for other driver authors, but from the PathScale
perspective, we did this for a number of reasons:

      * We were developing the driver a long time before we got involved
        in OpenFabrics.  So notch part of it up to inertia.

      * We want to support multiple kernel versions without resorting to
        patches: i.e. #ifdef'ing the code.  We strip this out before
        submitting to subversion or git, but it's all there in our
        private tree and in the RPMs we ship to our customers.

      * It's useful for us to keep stuff we're not planning on
        announcing private until we want to announce it, but still
        accessible to everyone in PathScale for testing, etc.

      * We very briefly considered using Subversion when we got involved
        in OpenFabrics, but just about every developer here shot the
        idea down as a step backwards, development-wise.  Chalk that one
        up to religion.

Regards,
 Robert.

-- 
Robert Walsh                                 Email: rjwalsh at pathscale.com
QLogic Corporation                           Phone: +1 650 934 8117
2071 Stierlin Court, Suite 200                 Fax: +1 650 428 1969
Mountain View, CA 94043.