[Mesa3d-dev] DRI SDK and modularized drivers.

[Nicolai Haehnle]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 5:38 PM, Luc Verhaegen <libv at skynet.be> wrote:
> So, identify the volatile interfaces, and the more stable interfaces,
> and then isolate the volatile ones, and then you come to only one
> conclusion.

Except that the Mesa core <-> classic driver interface also wants to
change from time to time in non-trivial ways, and trying to force a
separation there on people who don't want an additional set of
compatibility issues to deal with is not exactly a friendly move.

It may seem e.g. like the DRM interface is the worst because of rather
large threads caused by certain kernel developer's problems, but that
doesn't mean problems wouldn't be created by splitting other areas. In
particular, the Mesa core <-> classic driver split only makes sense if
there are enough people who are actually working on those drivers who
would support the split. Otherwise, this is bound to lead straight
into hell.

In a way, the kernel people got it right: put all the drivers in one
repository, and make building the whole package and having parallel
installations trivial. The (only?) issues with that in X.org are that:
1) there is a cultural aversion due to the bad experience with the
horrible pre-modularization setup, and
2) it wouldn't actually solve the DRM problems, because we want to
have the DRM in our codebase, and the kernel people want to have it in
theirs.

cu,
Nicolai