linux-kernel - Re: [RFC v2 1/2] virt: Add vboxguest driver for Virtual Box Guest integration

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Message-ID: <a001f1a4-7c86-c4f2-c0ba-568a7d61a1bb@redhat.com>
Date:   Fri, 25 Aug 2017 17:06:52 +0200
From:   Hans de Goede <hdegoede@...hat.com>
To:     Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>
Cc:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Michael Thayer <michael.thayer@...cle.com>,
        "Knut St . Osmundsen" <knut.osmundsen@...cle.com>,
        Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@...inger.net>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC v2 1/2] virt: Add vboxguest driver for Virtual Box Guest
 integration

Hi,

On 25-08-17 17:03, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 05:00:31PM +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:
>> I've already removed all the typedefs and camel-case outside of
>> include/uapi/linux
>>
>> The ones in include/uapi/linux are preserved to preserve API
>> compatibility with the existing VirtualBox userspace tools.
> 
> When merging new drivers we need to fix up the user abis anyway,
> we don't want to be stuck with mistakes from the past.  And the
> APIs look pretty bad, so there will be a lot work required after
> this basic cleanup anyway.

I'm afraid that the userspace API is more or less a take it
or leave it kinda deal, we can do small cleanups, but an
entire re-design is out of the question. The vboxguest code
has a long (too long) out of tree history and the same ioctl
interface is used by VirtualBox upstream on Windows, Mac OS X,
the BSDs and Solaris, so we cannot just go and break it to
out hart's content.

Regards,

Hans