linux-kernel - multiple drivers, single device (was Re: Announce: Linux-next (Or Andrew's dream :-)))

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Message-ID: <47B1C829.8020800@garzik.org>
Date:	Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:24:09 -0500
From:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
To:	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>
CC:	Stephen Rothwell <sfr@...b.auug.org.au>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, linux-next@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Linus <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: multiple drivers, single device (was Re: Announce: Linux-next (Or
 Andrew's dream  :-)))

Greg KH wrote:
> [1] Hopefully the "multiple drivers for a single device" feature people
> have been asking for for years will be landing soon, of course the
> number of odd places in the kernel that made the assumption that we
> could only have one driver per device is causing lots of fun...

Color me a bit skeptical...  we've always had this capability really: 
for multi-function devices, just register as many subsystems as you 
need.  If your device is a network _and_ SCSI device, you can do that 
with today's APIs.

I just went through a long thread (e1000/e1000e) explaining how much 
pain multiple drivers for the same PCI ID cause on the distro side of 
things...  its a mess.  In each case you must write special case code to 
resolve the ambiguity.  You never know which is the best driver to 
choose, or proper module load order -- which may vary depending on 
machine, not just static information captured from a kernel Makefile.

	Jeff

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