[CentOS-devel] RFC: kmods SIG Proposal

Sun May 23 19:00:07 UTC 2021
Jeffrey E Altman <jaltman at auristor.com>

On 5/23/2021 10:32 AM, Peter Georg 
(peter.georg at physik.uni-regensburg.de) wrote:
> Thanks to everyone for the input so far. I updated the original proposal 
> to reflect your input. In case I forgot something, please let me know.

This looks very good so far.  One comment below:

> === In-kernel modules not enabled for CentOS Stream ===
> Many in-kernel modules are simply disabled for the CentOS Stream kernel. 
> This may either be due to  drivers being deprecated and removed compared 
> to older CentOS major releases or never being enabled in the first 
> place. This SIG aims to provide these in-kernel drivers as external 
> kernel modules to enable CentOS Stream running on a broader range of 
> available hardware and provide other beneficial functionality.
> 
> === Third-party external kernel modules ===

Might I suggest "out-of-kernel modules" instead of "third-party external 
kernel modules".

> This SIG also aims to provide third-party kernel modules for CentOS 
> Stream not (yet) available in upstream kernel.

The "not (yet)" makes me wonder what the criteria for inclusion are.  Is 
it a requirement that the module might be accepted into the upstream 
kernel if submitted?  If this is the intent, I believe that would 
exclude two categories of modules.  First, modules that provide 
functionality already provided by an actively maintained in-kernel 
module.  Second, modules whose licenses are not listed in 
include/linux/license.h.

Later on the "What's not in scope" section says:

 > * Third-party kernel modules with a non GPL v2 compatible license 
which is overly broad.  Might I suggest:

[BEGIN]
==== Out-of-kernel modules =====

This SIG also aims to provide out-of-kernel modules for CentOS that 
might be accepted into the upstream kernel if submitted.  This category 
excludes:

  * modules whose primary functionality is already provided by an
    actively maintained in-kernel module.

  * modules whose licenses are not included in include/linux/license.h
    (see license_is_gpl_compatible()).
[END]

I hope this is helpful.

Jeffrey Altman


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