Re: linux-next: add utrace tree

[Stephen Rothwell]

Hi Ingo, Andrew,

On Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:29:25 +0100 Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> 
> * Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > * Ananth N Mavinakayanahalli <ananth@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 06:49:50AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > > 
> > > Ingo,
> > > 
> > > > Note, i'm not yet convinced that this (and the rest: uprobes and systemtap, 
> > > > etc.) can go uptream in its present form.
> > > 
> > > Agreed, uprobes is still not upstream ready -- it was an RFC. We are
> > > working through the comments there to get it ready for merger.
> > > 
> > > > IMHO the far more important thing to address beyond formalities and workflow 
> > > > cleanliness are the (many) technical observations and objections offered by 
> > > > Peter Zijstra on lkml. Not just the git history but also the abstractions and 
> > > > concepts are messy and should be reworked IMO, and also good and working perf 
> > > > events integration should be achieved, etc.
> > > 
> > > I think Oleg addressed most of Peter's concerns on utrace when the 
> > > ptrace/utrace patchset was reposted.
> > 
> > Peter is Cc:-ed and he might want to chime in.
> > 
> > > Perf integration with uprobes will be done and discussions have started with 
> > > Masami and Frederic. There are a couple of fundamental technical aspects 
> > > (XOL vma vs. emulation; breakpoint insertion through CoW and not through 
> > > quiesce) that need resolution.
> > > 
> > > > The fact that there's a well established upstream workflow for instrumentation 
> > > > patches, which is being routed around by the utrace/uprobes/systemtap code 
> > > > here is not a good sign in terms of reaching a good upstream solution. Lets 
> > > > hope it works out well though.
> > > 
> > > Agreed.
> > > 
> > > On the other hand, having ptrace/utrace in the -next tree will give it a
> > > lot more testing, while any outstanding technical issues are being addressed.
> > 
> > Including experimental code that is RFC and which is not certain to go 
> > upstream is certainly not the purpose of linux-next though.
> > 
> > It will cause conflicts with various other trees and increases the overhead 
> > all around. It also causes us to trust linux-next bugreports less - as it's 
> > not the 'next Linux' anymore. Also, there's virtually no high-level 
> > technical review done in linux-next: the trees are implicitly trusted 
> > (because they are pushed by maintainers), bugs and conflicts are reported 
> > but otherwise it's a neutral tree that includes pretty much any commit 
> > indiscriminately.
> > 
> > If you need review and testing there's a number of trees you can get 
> > inclusion into.
> 
> Btw., the utrace code has lived in -mm for quite some time - that's an 
> excellent route as Andrew does thorough review and testing.
> 
> If Andrew agrees with this particular tree as-is and wants these bits to live 
> in linux-next and have it in -mm that way then that's a fair approach 
> obviously and i have no objections ...

So, what is it to be?  In or out?

Frank, please be clear as to which branch you want included (master or
utrace-ptrace).  Also note that neither of those branches matches what
was posted in the sense that they both have lots of history and merges
not represented in the patches.  (I assume that they do produce the same
final source tree, though).

> The point is to have at least one relevant maintainer request and track it and 
> then supervise the completion of it (which includes the resolution of all 
> outstanding objections) and then push it to Linus.

If we do include it, it is still possible for people to decide (when the
next merge window opens) that it is still not ready.  It adds a bit of
maybe unneeded complication to linux-next, but we had the same problem in
this merge window and we have all survived.  :-)

In the end, Linus is the final arbitrator of course.
-- 
Cheers,
Stephen Rothwell                    sfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sfr/

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