So, now my question for PSARC is, if someone (say me, or Philip) wanted
to start up a case to make this a new requirement going forward (and
presumably we could allow for drivers to waive the requirement, but they
should need to be justified) wanted to sponsor a case, does this fall
under the realm of what would be called a fasttrack?
Such a proposal would itself be very light weight, but I'm not at all
convinced it would be non-controversial enough to qualify for less than
a full case. If nothing else, it gives PSARC a chance to express a
stronger opinion.
I'm willing to author the original document (fasttrack or otherwise),
although if its a full case then I need a sponsor on PSARC, I believe.
-- Garrett
Philip Brown wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 08:18:21AM -0700, Garrett D'Amore wrote:
>
>> James Carlson wrote:
>>
>>> ....
>>> Thus, DDI isn't a mandate.
>>>
>>>
>> Historically, believe I had the only DDI complaint ethernet drivers that
>> were to be found... either inside ON or outside of ON. I believe that
>> this signaled both deficiencies in ON, and in the various unbundled drivers.
>>
>> I believe that sticking to the DDI, while not a hard requirement for
>> drivers in ON, is a worthwhile cause even for the drivers in ON.
>>
>
> Gaaaah...
>
> DDI *should be* a mandate, even for drivers in ON.
>
> Why? because it ensures that the DDI level stuff, stays actually USEFUL.
>
> Multiple times, I think, I was trying to write a driver, and looking
> through the DDI for nice clean ways to do it..
> and, there just wasnt a way to do it!
> There were existing sun drivers that did similar things, and they got the
> job done just fine... by going around DDI.
> But for external people, "you cant get there from here".
>
>
> So, the answer to the long-standing question/gripe of,
> "why are there so few drivers by non-sun people out there?"
> would be at least in part,
>
> "Well, gee, becuase sun didnt provide non-src-privileged people a means of
> writing them!"
>
>
> So, I doubly underscore the later paragraph from Garrett:
>
>
>
>> 3) By using the DDI, you know that you're using the same APIs that we
>> recommend to external developers. That means you help to uncover any
>> limitations in the DDI.
>>
>
>
>
> Even in this modern day and age, where people now have "access to the
> source"... there is something very positive to be said about having an
> official DDI for things, that must be adhered to.. because then,
> (ideally), the interfaces would actually get DOCUMENTED...?
>
> Believe it or not, open source developers DO actually appreciate
> documentation (even if they rarely write any themselves ;-)
>
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