[openib-general] OpenIb 1.0 release components

[Bryan O'Sullivan]

On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 19:03 +0200, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:

> It seems that the openib release 1.0 as planned will include not only userspace
> libraries but also some kernel level modules.

Yes, I expect so.

> While this might be a good idea for modules such as iSER
> which are not currently part of the mainline kernel tree,
> it is in my opinion clearly not a good idea to replace the
> modules which *are* distributed with the mainline kernel.

I agree, for the most part.

What I have in mind for non-upstream kernel support is this:

      * We have to ship out-of-tree drivers, simply because there's only
        one driver in the upstream kernel, and the others are not yet
        ready for submission.
      * Some kernel components are clearly not contenders for shipping.
        One example is kdapl, because it appears to be dead due to
        upstream veto.
      * Others might be reasonable, if they (a) see some testing and (b)
        don't intrusively patch the core kernel.  I'm thinking here
        about iSER and, to a lesser extent, SDP.

The problem with SDP in particular is that we need the socket family to
be present in the upstream kernel, or we can't offer a stable ABI.  But
SDP seems to be quite flaky, so it's not obviously a candidate for
pushing to the upstream kernel as it stands.

	<b