From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2D858910 for ; Wed, 28 May 2014 23:47:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ve0-f181.google.com (mail-ve0-f181.google.com [209.85.128.181]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 84F052033D for ; Wed, 28 May 2014 23:47:29 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-ve0-f181.google.com with SMTP id pa12so13444829veb.12 for ; Wed, 28 May 2014 16:47:28 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: References: <1400925225.6956.25.camel@dabdike.int.hansenpartnership.com> <20140525222923.GW15585@mwanda> <1401119598.3303.6.camel@dabdike> <1401224020.14454.92.camel@dabdike> Date: Wed, 28 May 2014 16:47:28 -0700 Message-ID: From: Dan Williams To: Jiri Kosina Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: James Bottomley , Dan Carpenter , ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [TOPIC] Encouraging more reviewers List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 4:32 PM, Jiri Kosina wrote: > On Wed, 28 May 2014, Dan Williams wrote: > >> Isn't the fundamental problem: >> >> HW Vendor: "Are you saying you may hold up driver updates for an >> indefinite period of time?" >> >> Kernel community: "Yes" >> >> HW Vendor: "Ok, we'll keep sending our official updates direct to >> customers as an out-of-tree tarball and let that 'upstream-thing' >> happen in the background." > > This puts customers into an unfortunate position, as their OS vendor is > not going to support them with some "random" version of the driver being > linked into OS vendor's kernel. Hence I would expect the customers to > start asking HW vendor questions (especially if OS vendor is able to > explain the situation to the customer properly). > I've been on both sides of the producer/consumer coin. For environments that roll their own kernel upstream acceptance is preferred, but not necessarily required. Also, for the enterprise storage driver I worked on its dependency on core libraries turned out to be a liability. OS vendors sometimes have a different update cadences for common components vs standalone drivers. Customers are caught in the gap and exert pressure, to whomever will listen, to get their hardware to "just work (TM)".