Yaron, On 10/3/06, Yaron Haviv <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The only point I'm making is that any one can add an overlay driver for > his proprietary HW as he likes, and put it in OFED distribution, but if > this is becoming an internal portion of the open fabric kernel than: > 1. Let's look at how we solve the problems in a more general perspective > 2. Let's not duplicate code where we can avoid it
How is this duplicating code? It's just a NIC driver for a proprietary NIC that uses IB as it's I/O bus. What code is this duplicating? > 3. Let's make sure it's documented and reviewed (code and architectural > wise) There are many proprietary HW architecture drivers in the linux kernel. Heck, even in OpenFabrics -- the HCA drivers implement prorietary protocols over the PCI bus. Why should this be treated differently? The code should definitely be reviewed to make sure that it follows the right network driver architecture, interfaces to the IB stack properly, and follows the kernel coding guidelines. In fact, the review is what prompted this email thread. > We have kept those standards for all other solutions; I think it's just > as fair to demand it in that case as well OpenFabrics has followed standards where they exist. However, there is nothing that restricts development in OpenFabrics to things that have industry standards. There is also nothing that restricts proprietary drivers from having driver support in OpenFabrics or the Linux kernel. MTHCA is an example of a driver that does exactly this - it is a driver to enable Mellanox's proprietary HCA architecture for the OpenFabrics software stack with the goal of being merged into the Linux kernel. - Fab _______________________________________________ openib-general mailing list [email protected] http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-general To unsubscribe, please visit http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-general
