Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:56:27 +0100 | From | Ingo Molnar <> | Subject | Re: kvmtool tree (Was: Re: [patch] config: fix make kvmconfig) |
| |
* Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> wrote:
> [...] > > - he ended up gradually validating whether lockdep could be > ported to user-space. He first used 'messy' integration: > kernel/lockdep.c hacked up badly and linked directly into > user-space app. Then he did 'clean' integration: some > modifications to kernel/lockdep.c enabled it to be > librarified, and then the remaining work was done in > user-space - here too in successive steps. > > - tools/kvm/ happened to be hosted in the same kernel repo > that the locking tree is hosted in. > > The end result is something good that I never saw happen to > kernel code before, in the last 20 years of the Linux kernel. > Maybe it could have happened with an outside tools/kvm repo, > but I very strongly suspect that it would not. > > In theory this could have been done in the cold, fragmented, > isolated and desolate landscape of Linux user-space utilities, > by copying kernel/lockdep.c and a handful of kernel headers to > user-space, and making it work there somehow. > > Just like a blue rose could in theory grow on Antarctica as > well, given the right set of circumstances. It just so happens > that blue roses best grow in Holland, where there's good > support infrastructure for growing green stuff, while you'd > have to look hard to find any green stuff at all on > Antarctica.
To use another, perhaps more applicable analogy:
If one has the choice to start a new business in the U.S., it would be reasonable to do that. There's a lot of supporting infrastructure, trust, distribution, standards, enforcement agencies and available workers.
Could the same business succeed in Somalia as well? Possibly - if it's a bakery or something similarly fundamental. More complex businesses would likely not thrive very well there.
*That* is how I think the current Linux kernel tooling landscape looks like currently in a fair number of places: in many aspects it's similar to Somalia - disjunct entities with not much commonality or shared infrastructure.
Why people question the desire for a kernel related project (that only runs on a Linux host) to actually be part of an already well working, civilized society (the kernel repo) - for mutual, well documented benefits - instead of having to grow it all itself, is rather perplexing to me...
Thanks,
Ingo
| |