[ewg] "To OFED or not to OFED"

[richard Croucher]

As a OFED User I would rather it include all the low level drivers.

The problem comes with mixed hardware environments.  

If I have to go to Mellanox for their drivers they will insist I run
their complete MLNX OFED build.

If I go to Qlogic/Intel they will say the same.   I will then end up
with two different OFED distros running which makes our life really
difficult.

At least today I can choose,  i'e as these drivers are all in OFED, they
are also all in the MLNX_OFED as well so I can choose to run that if I
wish.  If they are taken out of OFED,  I won't have that choice.   I
like choice.

If the other vendors are not maintaining their drivers and there are
know bugs with them, then this should be documented in the release notes
and as a last recourse they get dropped from a specific OFED release.
We need to keep the door open to these other vendors,  then the User
community can apply pressure to them.  

I'll mention this to both the Chelsio and Intel sales teams when they
next come knocking at my door to buy their stuff.
-- 

Richard Croucher
www.informatix-sol.com
+44-7802-213901 

On Wed, 2012-04-18 at 15:42 +0000, Woodruff, Robert J wrote:

> I think it is too soon to discuss this with the board. Right now the
> EWG is not recommending anything, just soliciting input from the larger 
> community.
> Let's have the discussion on the list first to get people's position on this
> before we have any discussions at the board meeting.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org [mailto:ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Gilad Shainer
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 8:32 AM
> To: Ryan, Jim; Tziporet Koren; ewg at lists.openfabrics.org
> Subject: Re: [ewg] "To OFED or not to OFED"
> 
> Jim,
> 
> I believe that we should also include Tziporet and maybe others, therefore Friday will not work for folks from Israel.
> 
> Gilad
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org [mailto:ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Ryan, Jim
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 8:28 AM
> To: Tziporet Koren; ewg at lists.openfabrics.org
> Subject: Re: [ewg] "To OFED or not to OFED"
> 
> Tziporet, I think this is a very important decision. I'd like to make it an agenda item for the Board meeting on Friday. Woody typically participates -- would this be ok?
> 
> Thanks, Jim
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org [mailto:ewg-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Tziporet Koren
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 8:04 AM
> To: ewg at lists.openfabrics.org
> Subject: [ewg] "To OFED or not to OFED"
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> We started to work on OFED 3.2 and for now we already have the base code working with the new compat framework:
> - IB core (all modules)
> - IPoIB
> - mlx4, mthca - Mellanox drivers
> 
> However for the last few months there was no progress on any other low level driver:
> - qib - Intel
> - nec - Intel
> - cxgb3/4 - Chelsio
> 
> Since there is no reason to have OFED release for Mellanox only we need to understand the other companies position and commitment for OFED.
> 
> We have two options:
> - Drop OFED releases all together. Focus our EWG efforts in pushing APIs, testing of the Linux inbox SW stack and driver enhancements for the RDMA technology
> - Get real commitment from the vendors on dates to provide the backport support (we can move to kernel 3.3 if we decide this)
> 
> Please do your internal consideration and come back with your decision.
>  The final decision will be taken in next EWG meeting on May 1.
> 
> Thanks
> Tziporet & Woody
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