[ewg] RE: OFED Jan 5, 2009 meeting minutes on OFED plans

[Ira Weiny]

On Wed, 7 Jan 2009 09:35:39 -0800
"Woodruff, Robert J" <robert.j.woodruff at intel.com> wrote:

> Doug wrote,
> 
> >I'm not so much concerned over IBTA standards.  I'm concerned over what
> >makes it into the upstream linux kernels.  How much OFED's kernel
> >differs from the upstream kernel directly impacts supportability of the
> >OFED stack in our products.  The more it diverges, the higher the
> >support load.  We actively control that divergence as a result.
> 
> In general, we discussed and decided at the last developer's workshop
> in Sonoma to try to make sure that any new features that were going
> into OFED be first accepted for inclusion in the upstream kernel, or
> at least queued in Roland's tree for upstream.
> I think we did a pretty good job in OFED 1.4 of adhering to that
> process, or at least we made significant progress towards that goal.
> 
> We did this specifically to try to prevent major divergence between the
> upstream kernel and the OFED kernel. So for a major new feature like
> IBoE, I think it makes sense to first discuss the patches on ofa-general
> and perhaps even a RFC on kernel.org before we include it into an OFED
> release.
> 
> my 2 cents,
> 
> woody

I agree.  OFED should be downstream of kernel.org for as much as possible.  New
features should be introduced there first.

Ira