Subject: Re: [vserver] vserver git server and misc. thoughts
From: Adam Majer <adamm@zombino.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:00:16 -0500

Remigiusz Modrzejewski wrote:
> But in the end, it would invariably mean a lot of work, swinging patches back 
> and forth and convincing people that you're right about this code. And it 
> would probably end up being accepted in less than 100%. Then, Herbert 
> explicitly stated that maintaining 80% in-tree and 20% out-tree is exactly 
> the thing he's trying to avoid...
> 
> Anyways, you're welcome to try. And it would be a great thing if you 
> succeeded.

80% in-tree and 20% out-tree is much better than 100% out tree.

I don't understand the argument that this would be worse. It will
*never* happen that 100% of the patch will go into the kernel tree in
one linux release, or even 2 or 3. I've seen that already with a driver
ivtv. First they needed to implement necessary kernel API and get that
included. Then the driver started moving into the kernel. It took about
about a dozen kernel releases to get all the stuff in there, but it is
done now.

This is how kernel development works - small changes. This is why
monolithic patches like grsecurity, PaX or vserver can't be accepted.
Patches have to come in some kind of a logical sequence.

Now if we get vserver into the kernel, you will not see a lot of kernel
changes that would break vserver per-say. This also mean that vserver
would have to use standard API for most of the isolation instead of
intrusive patches.

- Adam