[openib-general] Re: [PATCH] sockaddr_ll change for IPoIB interface

[Roland Dreier]

    Tom> But, Fedora will rebuild their binary once this change is in.
    Tom> If the Linux developers cared about this sort of thing, it
    Tom> would version all its kernel structs and put padding at the
    Tom> end to ensure new fields could be added.  It has opted for
    Tom> the cleaner (technical) solution of having all the apps
    Tom> recompile.  Sure there will be a little bit of growing pain,
    Tom> but in the end, it won't have all kinds of backwards
    Tom> compatibility cruft lying around.

No, this is absolutely not true.  The kernel-user ABI is very stable,
and with very few exceptions, you should be able to take binaries that
worked on kernel 1.0 and run them on a modern kernel.  For example,
<http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/10/13/196>

The in-kernel ABI and API can and do change all the time, but that's a
different story.

 - R.