From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760235Ab1JGQYL (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Oct 2011 12:24:11 -0400 Received: from lennier.cc.vt.edu ([198.82.162.213]:59725 "EHLO lennier.cc.vt.edu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1760135Ab1JGQWi (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Oct 2011 12:22:38 -0400 X-Mailer: exmh version 2.7.2 01/07/2005 with nmh-1.3-dev To: Josh Boyer Cc: Frank Mehnert , Dave Jones , Linux Kernel , Andy Hall Subject: Re: RFC: virtualbox tainting. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:16:13 EDT." From: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu References: <20111006190526.GA13883@redhat.com> <201110071640.53827.frank.mehnert@oracle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="==_Exmh_1318004546_9306P"; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:22:26 -0400 Message-ID: <14824.1318004546@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> X-Mirapoint-Received-SPF: 198.82.161.152 auth3.smtp.vt.edu Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu 2 pass X-Junkmail-Status: score=10/50, host=dagger.cc.vt.edu X-Junkmail-Signature-Raw: score=unknown, refid=str=0001.0A020204.4E8F2745.013D,ss=1,fgs=0, ip=71.62.120.57, so=2010-07-22 22:03:31, dmn=2009-09-10 00:05:08, mode=single engine X-Junkmail-IWF: false Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org --==_Exmh_1318004546_9306P Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:16:13 EDT, Josh Boyer said: > In all seriousness, is there a reason these modules haven't been > submitted to the staging tree? Perhaps this was attempted in the past > and I'm just not finding references to it. I haven't actually checked what the churn rate of the kernel side of VirtualBox is, but there *is* some benefit if you have a package that includes both userspace and kernel code, to keep them in sync. Currently, VirtualBox is at 4.1.4. Now, if they decide they need to change/fix/extend the API for some reason, they can just ship a 4.1.6 and be happy. If the code is in-tree, then they are basically stuck with the API - they can't ship a 4.1.6 that can get away with assuming that all the kernel API is there. So you have to carry around workarounds and test-for-features code and all that stuff. I don't know - maybe the Oracle crew think the API is stable enough now that they can afford to do that. But Frank would probably be the one to speak to how in/out of tree would affect their development/support methodology. --==_Exmh_1318004546_9306P Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Exmh version 2.5 07/13/2001 iD8DBQFOjydCcC3lWbTT17ARAhACAJ4kOr0mOeBwGjMmnja/wneER9iSlACgji4V A+ncHqXDTqCX8tEu8IbWFYY= =bDTz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --==_Exmh_1318004546_9306P--