From owner-freebsd-stable  Sun Apr 23 23:17:59 2000
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Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 23:17:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>
Message-Id: <200004240617.XAA66270@apollo.backplane.com>
To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>
Cc: "Rodney W. Grimes" <freebsd@gndrsh.dnsmgr.net>,
	phk@critter.freebsd.dk (Poul-Henning Kamp),
	freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: SMP changes and breaking kld object module compatibility 
References:  <10872.956523122@zippy.cdrom.com>
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:I'm sure that something can be done for the kld compatibility issues
:so that you can have your SMP cake and eat it too.  Just give it a bit
:more thought. :)
:
:- Jordan

    Thought I have.  Time I don't.  While I don't particularly see a
    problem staying compatible with KLD modules that do spl*() calls,
    It's several day's worth of additional work when we go through
    the whole review / test / test-again process.  I've already gone
    through this process for what was committed to -current and I have
    already tested the patches under 4.x.  I do not have time to go 
    through it yet again due to having to make additional difficult-to-test
    changes.

    If this is an issue I suppose core can vote on whether the SMP 
    cleanup should be MFC'd to 4.x.  I've already laid out all the 
    reasons why I think it's a good idea to do.  I don't have the 40 
    man-hours it will take to guarentee compatibility with existing kld's
    (even if most are probably already compatible) so if you make that
    a requirement, the result will be no MFC at all.

    So you guys (core) choose -- do you want 4.x to reap the benefits of
    further SMP development or not?  If you choose no, beware that without
    this base cleanup there is *NO* chance whatsoever of any further SMP
    work being MFC'd to 4.x.  None.  Zilch.   It will have diverged too
    much.  

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon@backplane.com>


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