Re: Userspace Test Framework for module loader porting

[David Mosberger]

>>>>> On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 22:44:15 +1100, Rusty Russell <[e-mail]> said:

  >> I'd rather prefer the old (user-level loader)
  >> or the new shared-object loader.

  Rusty> Really?  Because it already exists (and is maintained by
  Rusty> someone else) or for some other reason?

Yeah, I'm lazy: I don't really want to have to deal with two new
module loaders: one for 2.6, soon to be followed by one for 2.7.  But
if someone volunteers to do and _maintain_ an interim kernel loader,
that's fine with me.

  Rusty> I thought about letting archs choose which one they wanted to
  Rusty> use, but it would really mess up the core code.  Of course,
  Rusty> the transition won't break userspace (kind of the whole point
  Rusty> of the in-kernel module loader).

But it would be more in keeping with the Linux philosophy: do the
Right Thing, fix up "broken" stuff by doing whatever is necessary.
I'm also a bit worried about changing module loaders so often.  Yeah,
once you switch to a kernel-loader, presumably users won't be
affected, but (kernel-module) developers will be.

	--david