Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH] librte_pmd_packet: add PMD for AF_PACKET-based virtual devices

["Richardson, Bruce" <bruce.richardson@intel.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dev [mailto:dev-bounces@dpdk.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Monjalon
> Sent: Friday, July 11, 2014 9:48 AM
> To: John W. Linville
> Cc: dev@dpdk.org
> Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH] librte_pmd_packet: add PMD for AF_PACKET-
> based virtual devices
> 
> 2014-07-11 11:30, John W. Linville:
> > On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 05:04:04PM +0200, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > > 2014-07-11 10:51, John W. Linville:
> > > > On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 03:26:39PM +0200, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > > > > Thank you for this nice work.
> > > > >
> > > > > I think it would be well suited to host this PMD as an external one in
> > > > > order to make it work also with DPDK 1.7.0.
> > > >
> > > > I'm not sure I understand the suggestion -- you don't want to merge
> > > > the driver for 1.8?  Or you just want to host this patch somewhere,
> > > > so people can still use it w/ 1.7?
> > >
> > > I suggest to have a separated repository here:
> > > 	http://dpdk.org/browse/
> >
> > I really don't see any reason not to merge it.  It was already delayed
> > by me waiting for all the PMD init changes to settle out in the 1.6
> > release, and I still had to do a few touch-ups for it to compile on
> > 1.7.  I definitely do not want to have to do that over and over again.
> 
> It's a pity that we didn't synchronize our efforts to make it integrated
> during 1.7.0 cycle.
> 
> > Why wouldn't you just merge it?  If someone wants to use it on 1.7,
> > they can just apply the patch.
> 
> I'm OK to merge it. I was only suggesting to host your PMD externally like we
> did for virtio-net-pmd, vmxnet3-usermap and memnic.
> It was the same discussion for the vmxnet3 PMD that Stephen submitted.
> 
> I start thinking that nobody wants PMD to be external. So we may merge this
> one in dpdk.git and start talking what to do for the other ones:
> 	- move memnic in dpdk.git?

Yes, I would agree with this. Having drivers in external git repos makes it hard for us to take them into account when planning on making changes to the core libs.

> 	- move virtio-net-pmd and vmxnet3-usermap where sits their uio
> counterparts?
> 	- merge Brocade's vmxnet3 as new one or as a replacement for
> vmxnet3-uio?

For these we really should try and converge on a single solution. Having multiple vmxnet3 and virtio drivers duplicates effort and is just plain messy! Of course, that's easier to say than to agree on...

/Bruce