2016-09-10 07:58, Finn Christensen: > From: Neil Horman [mailto:nhorman at tuxdriver.com] > > On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 12:48:38PM +0000, Finn Christensen wrote: > > > This is the Napatech NTNIC Poll Mode Driver (PMD) for DPDK. > > > > > > This patch adds support for Napatech NICs to DPDK. This is the > > > initial implementation. > > > > > > Signed-off-by: Finn Christensen <fc at napatech.com> > > > --- > > > v3: > > > * Removed the need for binary libraries on build > > > v2: > > > * Added information how to build the PMD without NIC > > > Board Support Package > > > * Fixed some formatting issues > > > > So, this is a step in the right direction, but I think its solving the wrong > > problem. If you have a dependency on an external library, thats ok, and > > accessing it via dlopen makes it possible to build the library without > > having > > that library present, but it not really in keeping with the spirit of what I > > meant. This driver is still effectively dependent on a binary blob that we > > have > > no visibility into. The better solution is releasing the source for the > > ntnic > > and ntos libraries. The license file in the referenced git tree indicates > > its > > BSD licensed, so I don't think there should be a problem in doing that. > > > > Neil > > > No, unfortunately the ntapi is not BSD licensed, only the header files that > you can freely download are. > We are building this NT NIC by using parts or our technology from our > capture adapters and that is using closed source software. > > We are new to opensource and we want to go that way, but we haven't > yet a complete stand-alone driver ready that we can put into the DPDK > PMD to have a complete self contained and open sourced DPDK PMD, that > only needs the actual HW NIC plugged in to run. > Therefore this version is implemented as a virtual device, exactly like the > PCAP PMD driver is, and it runs on top of a driver that follows the NIC > itself. > > In regards to the DPDK functionality we do not see that anything is missing. > I cannot either see where we should add source code, because it is not part > of the DPDK package and it should not be either. > > One of the things I really liked about the DPDK open source project is that it > uses BSD licensing not GPL. Therefore, I must admit, we completely failed > to see that the "spirit" of the DPDK community is not really BSD. Our view > of this community was that the main driving force of it was to be able to > make DPDK run on everything anywhere effectively, in a global contributing > community, without any legally constrains prohibiting us to do so.
It is difficult to define what is the spirit of a community, especially only after few mail exchanges. I agree that running on everything anywhere is a nice goal. Here Neil, as a RedHat developer, is probably concerned about enabling your driver in a distribution. It seems your model is not compatible with the "anywhere goal" and will be disabled in that case, until it is fully open. > However, this is our standing, and I don't know what else to do. > Please advise or NAK this PMD. I do not remember having already seen such model in DPDK. So we need to think about the implications a bit more. (Comments/discussions are welcome) Thanks for your patience.
