Network device driver KPI/ABI and TOE

[Peter Jeremy]

On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 06:37:19PM +0000, Robert Watson wrote:
>What I'm more concerned about is the new exposure of internal data 
>structures and algorithms, and a resulting freeze of those data structures 
>and algorithms if we were to apply our current ABI/PI policy to the TOE 
>interfaces.

Whilst I doubt TOE will directly affect me in the short term, I would be
disappointed if general TCP improvements could not be MFCd because it
would change the TOE ABI.

I believe that TOE is fairly new and not completely mature feature.
Is it possible that further experience with TOE may also lead to
changes in the interfaces between TOE and the rest of the kernel,
irrespective of the kernel innards?

If we do decide to expose a set of interfaces where we do not
guarantee the API/ABI, those interfaces need to be clearly documented
as such.  Solaris (eg) has an "interface stability" section in some of
its man pages - maybe we should look at something similar.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
Please excuse any delays as the result of my ISP's inability to implement
an MTA that is either RFC2821-compliant or matches their claimed behaviour.
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