On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 12:07 AM, Saeed Mahameed <sae...@dev.mellanox.co.il> wrote: > On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 7:14 PM, David Miller <da...@davemloft.net> wrote: >> From: Saeed Mahameed <sae...@mellanox.com> >> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2017 19:22:34 +0200 >> >>> This pull request includes one patch from Leon, this patch as described >>> below will change the driver directory structure and layout for better, >>> logical and modular driver files separation. >>> >>> This change is important to both rdma and net maintainers in order to >>> have smoother management of driver patches for different mlx5 sub modules >>> and smoother rdma-next vs. net-next features submissions. >>> >>> Please find more info below -in the tag commit message-, >>> review and let us know if there's any problem. >>> >>> This change doesn't introduce any conflicts with the current mlx5 >>> fixes and cleanups posted on 2017-01-10 to net branch, and merge tests >>> worked flawlessly with no issues. >>> >>> This is the last pull request meant for both rdma-next and net-next. >>> Once pulled, this will be the base shared code for both trees. >> >> This is pretty crazy, it will make all bug fix backporting to -stable >> a complete nightmare for myself, Doug, various distribution maintainers >> and many other people who quietly have to maintain their own trees and >> do backporting. >> > > I hear you, > But please bear with me here, what if we queue this patch up to -stable ? and > we > (Mellanox) and specifically our dedicated inbox team, will make sure > that this patch > will land on the various distributions and for those maintaining their > own trees. > This patch is really straight forward (rename files) and I already > tried to cherry-pick it > on older kernels, I only got a couple of conflicts on some of the > "#inlcude" lines we've > changed, and they are pretty straightforward to fix, we can even avoid > this if we decide to > not move mlx5 header files in this phase. > > If this is possible then all trees will be aligned and it will be a > win win situation. >
Hi Dave, Any chance you saw my -stable suggestion above ? I think it would really close the backporting gap. Sorry i am bothering you with this topic, but we really desire the new structure and I never got your feedback on this suggestion, so i would like to hear your thoughts. Thanks, Saeed. >> I really don't think you can justify this rearrangement based upon the >> consequences and how much activity happens in this driver. >> > > Right, but this is not the only justification, I can sum it up to that > we would like > to lay out the foundation for many years to come for a well designed > driver with a modular > sub modules break down and scalable infrastructure. We already plan to > submit more mlx5 > independent sub modules - just like mlx5e (en_*) files and mlx5_ib > driver- so this was also > a reason for us to consider this re-engagement at this stage. > >> You should have thought long and hard about the layout a long time ago >> rather than after the driver has been in the tree for many years. >> > > I had this Idea for the separation before the mlx5 Ethernet > submission, but I wasn't the maintainer > back then, and i have been itching to submit such patch for long as > well, still i don't think > it is too late, We (Me and Leon) will keep maintaining this driver for > only god knows how many years to come, > and the mlx5 drivers are meant to serve at least 3-4 more future HW > generations. > > Long story short, We would like to re-arrange the driver in a way that > would serve us (the maintainers) and serve those > who are going do develop the future Stack features and the future HW > generations over the well designed (Hopefully) > mlx5 infrastructure. > Keeping it as it is today, will only make the situation worst in the > future and it will be really hard to avoid having a spaghetti code > in the mlx5 driver. All i want to point out here is that maintaining > such a flat subtree is also nightmare. > > So i am only asking you to reconsider this change and give my -stable > suggestion a thought. > > Thank you. > Saeed.
