Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 08:35:24 -0800 From: Sam Leffler <sam@freebsd.org> To: Maxim Sobolev <sobomax@freebsd.org> Cc: svn-src-head@freebsd.org, svn-src-all@freebsd.org, src-committers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: svn commit: r187426 - head/sys/amd64/conf Message-ID: <4974ABCC.7000107@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <497446D4.5020104@FreeBSD.org> References: <200901190710.n0J7ACSg001385@svn.freebsd.org> <497432A1.9060805@samsco.org> <497446D4.5020104@FreeBSD.org>
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Maxim Sobolev wrote:
> Scott Long wrote:
>> prepare to be wrong. And above all else, don't put drivers into here
>> that you haven't tested. It's pretty silly to admit in your commit
>> message, for all to see, that you are blatantly committing without
>> testing.
>
> Actually this is interesting point, what the best strategy for us as
> the project should be? Should we new put drivers that have been tested
> on i386 only and don't have any particular reason to be i386-specific
> (i.e. ISA/EISA drivers, PCMCIA drivers etc) into amd64 GENERIC
> automatically and wait for somebody to report a problem, or stay on
> the safe side and enable drivers on amd64 only after somebody actually
> has tested them and confirms that they are working? Should this policy
> depend on driver class (for example a storage driver has much higher
> potential for screwing user's data compared to a network driver or a
> sound driver) and on release (HEAD / STABLE)? IMHO FreeBSD could
> benefit by putting at least non-storage untested non i386-specific
> drivers into amd64 kernel and/or at least in HEAD to give them testing
> and a wider exposure.
>
> This is not just idle interest for me - recently our company has
> started shipping amd64 version of our FreeBSD-based product, so that
> we are a little bit concerned about hardware support with amd64 7.1
> kernel being a little bit narrower compared to i386 7.1 kernel.
>
> I apologize if this topic has been discussed somewhere already.
I think the answer to your question about default-enabling drivers is
very clear: it is the decision of the person maintaining the driver. If
you're willing to SUPPORT a driver on a platform then feel free to
enable it. Otherwise doing a drive-by to enable a driver that may or
may not work may easily result in complaints that are unanswered. These
have resulted in people concluding wider breakage that easily becomes
de-facto and are hard to kill given that people google for help, find
old complaints, and stop searching.
Sam
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