[Ksummit-2008-discuss] proposal for discussion..

[Mauro Carvalho Chehab]

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:31:38 +0200
Jean Delvare <khali at linux-fr.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 07:21:32 +1000, Dave Airlie wrote:
> > I'd like to see if we can address the problem of developing subsystems
> > in the kernel with large userspace dependencies.
> > 
> > i.e. drm, alsa, v4l2.
> > 
> > These subsystems have long been problem areas, and people are usually
> > quick to blame the maintainers and developers. However
> > I feel from maintaining one of these subsystems, that in-kernel
> > development cannot always happen due to the amount of userspace code
> > required,
> > that we cannot provide a userspace ABI until we have finished all the
> > kernel code and userspace code to use it.
> > 
> > This is as opposed to filesystem, block, networking, wireless layers
> > where you can happily sit behind a standard API to userspace for much
> > of the time.
> > 
> > Points for discussion:
> > 1. out-of-kernel vs in-kernel trees.
> > 2. backwards compat trees (i.e. trees that can build 2-3 kernels back).
> > 3. holding onto age old userspace APIs.
> 
> That's a discussion I am interested in.

This seems interesting to me also.


Cheers,
Mauro