Hi Am 13.07.23 um 16:41 schrieb Sean Paul:
On Thu, Jul 13, 2023 at 9:04 AM Uwe Kleine-König <u.kleine-koenig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:hello Sean, On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 02:31:02PM -0400, Sean Paul wrote:I'd really prefer this patch (series or single) is not accepted. This will cause problems for everyone cherry-picking patches to a downstream kernel (LTS or distro tree). I usually wouldn't expect sympathy here, but the questionable benefit does not outweigh the cost IM[biased]O.I agree that for backports this isn't so nice. However with the split approach (that was argumented against here) it's not soo bad. Patch #1 (and similar changes for the other affected structures) could be trivially backported and with that it doesn't matter if you write dev or drm (or whatever name is chosen in the end); both work in the same way.Patch #1 avoids the need to backport the entire set, however every change occuring after the rename patches will cause conflicts on future cherry-picks. Downstream kernels will have to backport the whole set. Backporting the entire set will create an epoch in downstream kernels where cherry-picking patches preceding this set will need to undergo conflict resolution as well. As mentioned in my previous email, I don't expect sympathy here, it's part of maintaining a downstream kernel, but there is a real cost to kernel consumers.But even with the one-patch-per-rename approach I'd consider the renaming a net win, because ease of understanding code has a big value. It's value is not so easy measurable as "conflicts when backporting", but it also matters in say two years from now, while backporting shouldn't be an issue then any more.You've rightly identified the conjecture in your statement. I've been on both sides of the argument, having written/maintained drm code upstream and cherry-picked changes to a downstream kernel. Perhaps it's because drm's definition of dev is ingrained in my muscle memory, or maybe it's because I don't do a lot of upstream development these days, but I just have a hard time seeing the benefit here.
I can only second what Sean writes. I've done quite a bit of backporting of DRM code. It's hard already. And this kind of change is going to to affect almost every backported DRM patch in the coming years. Not just for distribution kernels, but also for upstream's stable series. It's really only possible to do this change over many releases while keeping compatible with the old name. So the more I think about it, the less I like this change.
Best regards Thomas
I appreciate your engagement on the topic, thank you! SeanThanks for your input, best regards Uwe -- Pengutronix e.K. | Uwe Kleine-König | Industrial Linux Solutions | https://www.pengutronix.de/ |
-- Thomas Zimmermann Graphics Driver Developer SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Frankenstrasse 146, 90461 Nuernberg, Germany GF: Ivo Totev, Andrew Myers, Andrew McDonald, Boudien Moerman HRB 36809 (AG Nuernberg)
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