https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1206172 https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1206172#c6 --- Comment #6 from Martin Wilck <martin.wilck@suse.com> --- (In reply to Lee Duncan from comment #4)

It is a common problem, across distros, that interfaces get back-ported. In this case, I did precisely what Hannes asked me to do, i.e. aggressively back-port changes, so that future patches apply more cleanly.

I understand. Still, partners will not love this change. Note that I am only talking about scsi_done. I didn't know it was you who did this, and it makes no difference to me who it was. Ultimately, it's our convenience ("future patches apply more cleanly") vs. the convenience of our partners ("modules can be compiled against any SP without major engineering efforts").

In this case, mhvtl is a KMP, which are problematic by nature, since they have to deal with lots of kernel changes to continue to compile and work correctly. I believe we did the right thing, so no need to lament the kABI soft-freeze.

This is not about KABI, it's about the API and the fact that this change can't be easily detected. ABI changes with SPs are no problem for 3rd party modules. You just recompile against the new kernel headers and are done. But if compilation errors occur (like here), you're in trouble. How much trouble? It depends.

I believe I did the right thing in the mhvtl KMP by using detection instead of the kernel version to know which interfaces to use.

Well yeah, it's "the right thing" once you are in the situation the scsi_done change created. But this sort of autotools-like test is much more cumbersome to create than a simple LINUX_VERSION_CODE check.

It's a problem mhvtl has had for a while (like most KMPs?).

Every SCSI KMP will have this issue. At least we now know what to tell the maintainers.

I have asked upstream to merge mhvtl into the kernel proper, but so far they are not interested.

One more data point for the fact that 3rd party modules aren't going away. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.