Messages in this thread | | | From | Kumar Gala <> | Subject | Re: [RFC] Add kernel<->userspace ABI stability documentation | Date | Mon, 27 Feb 2006 13:22:05 -0600 |
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On Feb 27, 2006, at 1:01 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> Hi all, > > As has been noticed recently by a lot of different people, it seems > like > we are breaking the userspace<->kernelspace interface a lot. Well, in > looking back over time, we always have been doing this, but no one > seems > to notice (proc files changing format and location, netlink library > bindings, etc.) > > Linux is a dynamic system, we add and change things all the time based > on the need of its developers and users. Because of this, we now > run on > more platforms than any other operating system ever has, from the > world's top supercomputers, to the phone in your pocket. It is how we > have survived so far, and is how we will survive in the future. > > In order to ensure that we can continue to be dynamic in the > future, and > not get bogged down by interfaces that are half-baked, or just turn > out > to be wrong once we implement them and find ways to break them (anyone > remember the sys_futex evolution?) we need to be able to handle the > changes in the userspace<->kernelspace ABI properly. > > So, here's a first cut at how we can do this. Lots of other operating > systems explicity document what the interfaces to it are, and give a > "stability" rating of those interfaces (for one example, look at > http://opensolaris.org/os/community/onnv/devref_toc/devref_7/ ). I > feel > that we too need to document this interface, in order to keep everyone > in the loop and not cause any unwanted surprises at times they do not > need them (like right before a company's deadline.) > > I've sketched out a directory structure that starts in > Documentation/ABI/ and has five different states, "stable", "testing", > "unstable", "obsolete", and "private". The README file describes > these > different states, and how things can move between them. I've also > seeded the directories with some well known examples of the different > interfaces that are already in these states. > > So, any comments? Criticisms?
It would be nice if we can come up with some way for Linus to document state changes in his release notes.
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