linux-kernel - Re: kvmtool tree (Was: Re: [patch] config: fix make kvmconfig)

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Date:	Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:56:27 +0100
From:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Pekka Enberg <penberg@...nel.org>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...ux.intel.com>,
	Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	David Rientjes <rientjes@...gle.com>,
	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
	Sasha Levin <levinsasha928@...il.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Michal Marek <mmarek@...e.cz>,
	Stephen Rothwell <sfr@...b.auug.org.au>
Subject: Re: kvmtool tree (Was: Re: [patch] config: fix make kvmconfig)


* Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org> wrote:

> [...]
>
>  - he ended up gradually validating whether lockdep could be 
>    ported to user-space. He first used 'messy' integration: 
>    kernel/lockdep.c hacked up badly and linked directly into 
>    user-space app. Then he did 'clean' integration: some 
>    modifications to kernel/lockdep.c enabled it to be 
>    librarified, and then the remaining work was done in 
>    user-space - here too in successive steps.
> 
>  - tools/kvm/ happened to be hosted in the same kernel repo
>    that the locking tree is hosted in.
> 
> The end result is something good that I never saw happen to 
> kernel code before, in the last 20 years of the Linux kernel. 
> Maybe it could have happened with an outside tools/kvm repo, 
> but I very strongly suspect that it would not.
> 
> In theory this could have been done in the cold, fragmented, 
> isolated and desolate landscape of Linux user-space utilities, 
> by copying kernel/lockdep.c and a handful of kernel headers to 
> user-space, and making it work there somehow.
> 
> Just like a blue rose could in theory grow on Antarctica as 
> well, given the right set of circumstances. It just so happens 
> that blue roses best grow in Holland, where there's good 
> support infrastructure for growing green stuff, while you'd 
> have to look hard to find any green stuff at all on 
> Antarctica.

To use another, perhaps more applicable analogy:

If one has the choice to start a new business in the U.S., it 
would be reasonable to do that. There's a lot of supporting 
infrastructure, trust, distribution, standards, enforcement 
agencies and available workers.

Could the same business succeed in Somalia as well? Possibly - 
if it's a bakery or something similarly fundamental. More 
complex businesses would likely not thrive very well there.

*That* is how I think the current Linux kernel tooling landscape 
looks like currently in a fair number of places: in many aspects 
it's similar to Somalia - disjunct entities with not much 
commonality or shared infrastructure.

Why people question the desire for a kernel related project 
(that only runs on a Linux host) to actually be part of an 
already well working, civilized society (the kernel repo) - for 
mutual, well documented benefits - instead of having to grow it 
all itself, is rather perplexing to me...

Thanks,

	Ingo
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