Re: modules

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 05:45:15PM -0600, dann frazier wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-09-03 at 23:28 +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > Well, my idea is to try to host all those module package in the kernel
> > subversion tree (under modules), in such a way that we can trigger automated
> > or semi-automated uploads of them in case of kernel abi changes.
> 
> some food for thought...
> kernel-images I maintain for work[1] will build-dep on all associated
> kernel-module-source packages and spit out separate debs for these
> modules automatically as part of the build.  This works well for us,
> because we never have to do manual (or semi-auto) builds of all these
> other module packages.  If their source doesn't need to change, then
> they don't have to be re-released, and they're always built against the
> latest headers.
> 
> Of course, doing something similar in the kernel team would have a
> significant number of negative aspects.  The kernel team would become
> the de facto maintainers for these modules.  Not only would the
> maintenance overhead add extra load, but we'd have to deal with rc bugs
> in these modules keeping us from migrating into testing, etc.
> 
> But.. is there a way to do something similar and avoid these problems?
> Like maybe a kernel-modules-outoftree source package that build-deps on
> all current source?  Or, maybe we do let linux-2.6 do these builds, but
> with a policy of tough love for those with RC issues (no questions asked
> removal until they're shown to no longer have problems)?

No, that will not work, as what needs to be automated is the uploading of
those modules, and the signing of them. We have a similar problem in the case
of the ocaml packages, where all packages need to be reuploaded if there is an
ABI change in the ocaml runtime, or with C++, which may be more familiar to
you.

> I find the requirement to do a new release of a package just for a
> rebuild pretty ugly - there's gotta be a better way.

There is currently no way to solve this short of a rebuild, and only a
reupload can do this rebuild.

Friendly,

Sven Luther