From: Leon Romanovsky <leonro@xxxxxxxxxxxx> In order to stop useless driver version bumps and unify output presented by ethtool -i, let's set default version string. As Linus said in [1]: "Things are supposed to be backwards and forwards compatible, because we don't accept breakage in user space anyway. So versioning is pointless, and only causes problems." They cause problems when users start to see version changes and expect specific set of features which will be different for stable@, vanilla and distribution kernels. Distribution kernels are based on some kernel version with extra patches on top, for example, in RedHat world this "extra" is a lot and for them your driver version say nothing. Users who run vanilla kernels won't use driver version information too, because running such kernels requires knowledge and understanding. Another set of problems are related to difference in versioning scheme and such doesn't allow to write meaningful automation which will work sanely on all ethtool capable devices. Before this change: [leonro@erver ~]$ ethtool -i eth0 driver: virtio_net version: 1.0.0 After this change and once ->version assignment will be deleted from virtio_net: [leonro@server ~]$ ethtool -i eth0 driver: virtio_net version: 5.5.0-rc6+ Link: https://lore.kernel.org/ksummit-discuss/CA+55aFx9A=5cc0QZ7CySC4F2K7eYaEfzkdYEc9JaNgCcV25=rg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200122152627.14903-1-michal.kalderon@xxxxxxxxxxx/T/#md460ff8f976c532a89d6860411c3c50bb811038b Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200127060835.GA570@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Signed-off-by: Leon Romanovsky <leonro@xxxxxxxxxxxx> --- Changelog: v4: Set default driver version prior to calling ->get_drvinfo(). This will allow us to remove all in-the-tree version assignments, while keeping ability to overwrite it for out-of-tree drivers. v3: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200126105422.86969-1-leon@xxxxxxxxxx Used wrong target branch, changed from rdma-next to net-next. v2: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200126100124.86014-1-leon@xxxxxxxxxx Updated commit message. v1: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200125161401.40683-1-leon@xxxxxxxxxx Resend per-Dave's request https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200125.101311.1924780619716720495.davem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx No changes at all and applied cleanly on top of "3333e50b64fe Merge branch 'mlxsw-Offload-TBF'" v0: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-rdma/20200123130541.30473-1-leon@xxxxxxxxxx --- net/ethtool/ioctl.c | 2 ++ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+) diff --git a/net/ethtool/ioctl.c b/net/ethtool/ioctl.c index 182bffbffa78..0501b615e920 100644 --- a/net/ethtool/ioctl.c +++ b/net/ethtool/ioctl.c @@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ #include <linux/phy.h> #include <linux/bitops.h> #include <linux/uaccess.h> +#include <linux/vermagic.h> #include <linux/vmalloc.h> #include <linux/sfp.h> #include <linux/slab.h> @@ -655,6 +656,7 @@ static noinline_for_stack int ethtool_get_drvinfo(struct net_device *dev, memset(&info, 0, sizeof(info)); info.cmd = ETHTOOL_GDRVINFO; + strlcpy(info.version, UTS_RELEASE, sizeof(info.version)); if (ops->get_drvinfo) { ops->get_drvinfo(dev, &info); } else if (dev->dev.parent && dev->dev.parent->driver) { -- 2.24.1