Changing kernel API / Breaking VirtualBox - update criteria violation?

[Josh Boyer]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 12:08:14PM -0500, Dave Jones wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 08:53:13AM -0800, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>>  > According to the updates policy the
>>  > maintainer needs to consider that their change will cause problems for third
>>  > party kernel module packagers and end users that are compiling their own
>>  > kernel modules.
>>
>> We *know* we're going to break out of tree modules. It's entirely expected.
>> There's nothing to consider here at all.
>>
> I don't disagree with your first two sentences.  In fact I'd go further --
> It's not only expected, it's also accepted by you.
>
> The third sentence is the only thing that I think needs to be looked at in
> terms of the Update Policy.  The updates policy and the updates vision on
> which it is based strive to make maintainers realize that pushing updates
> has both positive and negative effects on end users.  Some of those effects
> are also "expected and accepted".  For instance, the updates vision says
> "Similarly, dealing with a large number of updates on a regular basis is
> distracting from the user's desired productivity tasks."  Simply issuing an
> update is in and of itself one negative in the updates vision.
>
> So, yes, it may be fully expected that issuing an update will break out of
> tree modules but that doesn't stop it from being one factor to *consider*.

We have considered it.  A really long time ago.  At that time, it was
decided that we consider out-of-tree modules to be something we don't
support, don't care about, and won't hold up updates for because of
the aforementioned heavier considerations of fixing bugs.  So, with
that phrasing in mind, everything is compliant with what you're saying
about the updates policy.

Maybe now this thread can end, because it's really not accomplishing
anything at all.  If we wanted to sit around and practice
wordsmithing, there are much better places and topics to do it with.

josh