Re: [PATCH v16 00/17] KVM RISC-V Support

[Anup Patel]

Hi Paolo,

Looks like it will take more time for KVM RISC-V to be merged under arch/riscv.

Let's go ahead with your suggestion of having KVM RISC-V under drivers/staging
so that development is not blocked.

I will send-out v18 series which will add KVM RISC-V under the staging
directory.

Should we target Linux-5.14 ?

Regards,
Anup

On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 11:13 AM Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 9 Apr 2021, Palmer Dabbelt wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 31 Mar 2021 02:21:58 PDT (-0700), pbonzini@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > > Palmer, are you okay with merging RISC-V KVM?  Or should we place it in
> > > drivers/staging/riscv/kvm?
> >
> > I'm certainly ready to drop my objections to merging the code based on
> > it targeting a draft extension, but at a bare minimum I want to get a
> > new policy in place that everyone can agree to for merging code.  I've
> > tried to draft up a new policy a handful of times this week, but I'm not
> > really quite sure how to go about this: ultimately trying to build
> > stable interfaces around an unstable ISA is just a losing battle.  I've
> > got a bunch of stuff going on right now, but I'll try to find some time
> > to actually sit down and finish one.
> >
> > I know it might seem odd to complain about how slowly things are going
> > and then throw up another roadblock, but I really do think this is a
> > very important thing to get right.  I'm just not sure how we're going to
> > get anywhere with RISC-V without someone providing stability, so I want
> > to make sure that whatever we do here can be done reliably.  If we don't
> > I'm worried the vendors are just going to go off and do their own
> > software stacks, which will make getting everyone back on the same page
> > very difficult.
>
> I sympathize with Paolo, Anup, and others also.  Especially Anup, who has
> been updating and carrying the hypervisor patches for a long time now.
> And also Greentime, who has been carrying the V extension patches.  The
> RISC-V hypervisor specification, like several other RISC-V draft
> specifications, is taking longer to transition to the officially "frozen"
> stage than almost anyone in the RISC-V community would like.
>
> Since we share this frustration, the next questions are:
>
> - What are the root causes of the problem?
>
> - What's the right forum to address the root causes?
>
> To me, the root causes of the problems described in this thread aren't
> with the arch/riscv kernel maintenance guidelines, but rather with the
> RISC-V specification process itself.  And the right forum to address
> issues with the RISC-V specification process is with RISC-V International
> itself: the mailing lists, the participants, and the board of directors.
> Part of the challenge -- not simply with RISC-V, but with the Linux kernel
> or any other community -- is to ensure that incentives (and disincentives)
> are aligned with the appropriately responsible parts of the community.
> And when it comes to specification development, the right focus to align
> those incentives and disincentives is on RISC-V International.
>
> The arch/riscv patch acceptance guidelines are simply intended to ensure
> that the definition of what is and isn't RISC-V remains clear and
> unambiguous.  Even though the guidelines can result in short-term pain,
> the intention is to promote long-term stability and sustainable
> maintainability - particularly since the specifications get baked into
> hardware.  We've observed that attempting to chase draft specifications
> can cause significant churn: for example, the history of the RISC-V vector
> specification illustrates how a draft extension can undergo major,
> unexpected revisions throughout its journey towards ratification.  One of
> our responsibilities as kernel developers is to minimize that churn - not
> simply for our own sanity, or for the usability of RISC-V, but to ensure
> that we remain members in good standing of the broader kernel community.
> Those of us who were around for the ARM32 and ARM SoC kernel accelerando
> absorbed strong lessons in maintainability, and I doubt anyone here is
> interested in re-learning those the hard way.
>
> RVI states that the association is open to community participation.  The
> organizations that have joined RVI, I believe, have a strong stake in the
> health of the RISC-V ecosystem, just as the folks have here in this
> discussion.  If the goal really is to get quality specifications out the
> door faster, then let's focus the energy towards building consensus
> towards improving the process at RISC-V International.  If that's
> possible, the benefits won't only accrue to Linux developers, but to the
> entire RISC-V hardware and software development community at large.  If
> nothing else, it will be an interesting test of whether RISC-V
> International can take action to address these concerns and balance them
> with those of other stakeholders in the process.
>
>
> - Paul