[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Re: [Xen-devel] [RFC] Xen PV Drivers Lifecycle
On Tue, 20 Dec 2016, Jan Beulich wrote: > >>> On 20.12.16 at 01:47, <sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > ## Design Phase > > > > The first step toward acceptance of a new PV protocol is to write a > > design document and send it to xen-devel. It should cover the xenstore > > handshake mechanism, the ABI, how the protocol works and anything else > > which is required to write an implementation of it. The usage of C-like > > structs to describe language and platform agnostic protocols is > > discouraged. > > > > An attempt should be made for the protocol ABI to be backward compatible > > and OS agnostic, but, realistically, backward and cross-platform > > compatibility are not fully expected at this stage. > > How does backward compatibility matter for a new protocol? Is > this perhaps rather about forward compatibility provisions > (like requiring reserved fields to be zero to allow future use)? By "backward compatibility" I mean promising that, in 5 years time, a new frontend will still be able to connect to a backend written in 2016. This level of support requires an understanding of the protocol and its subtleties which usually only comes from experience. Hence, I am suggesting to make this kind of promises only after the code has lived in-tree for a while and has been subject to wider testing. Maybe I should call it cross-versions compatibility? _______________________________________________ Xen-devel mailing list Xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.xen.org/xen-devel
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