netdev - Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Device Passthrough Considered Harmful?

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Message-ID: <nycvar.YFH.7.76.2407231320210.11380@cbobk.fhfr.pm>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2024 13:20:26 +0200 (CEST)
From: Jiri Kosina <jikos@...nel.org>
To: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>
cc: ksummit@...ts.linux.dev, linux-cxl@...r.kernel.org, 
    linux-rdma@...r.kernel.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org, jgg@...dia.com
Subject: Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Device Passthrough Considered Harmful?

On Mon, 8 Jul 2024, Dan Williams wrote:

> 2/ Device passthrough, kernel passing opaque payloads, is already taken
>    for granted in many subsystems. USB and HID have "raw" interfaces

Just as a completely random datapoint here: after I implemented hidraw 
inteface long time ago, I was a little bit hesitant about really merging 
it, because there was a general fear that this would shatter the HID 
driver ecosystem, making it difficult for people to find proper drivers 
for their devices, etc.

Turns out that that didn't happen. Drivers for generic devices are still 
implemented properly in the kernel, and hidraw is mostly used for rather 
specific, one-off solutions, where the vendor's business plan is "ship 
this one appliance and forget forever", which doesn't really cause any 
harm to the whole ecosystem.

-- 
Jiri Kosina
SUSE Labs