[Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Reviewing new API/ABI

[Laurent Pinchart]

On Wednesday 07 May 2014 14:36:27 Daniel Vetter wrote:
> On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> > We have seen several review, test and documentation procedures being
> > developed for different subsystems in the recent past (two examples are
> > the DRM i915 driver API test rules explained by Daniel Vetter in a reply
> > to this mail thread, and the V4L test suite and documentation procedure)
> > but I have seen little effort to consolidate good practice rules. The
> > kernel would certainly benefit from both sharing information about how
> > various subsystems tackle the API review/test/documentation problem.
> > 
> > Forcing all subsystems to adhere and enforce a superset of rules would
> > likely put too much burden on maintainers and developers, especially for
> > the smaller subsystems. However, I believe we could help by gathering and
> > consolidating the good practice rules in a single location under
> > Documentation/. Maintainers could then implement those rules (or a subset
> > thereof) without having to reinvent the wheel. Rules such as "return
> > -EINVAL when a reserved parameter is set" are not complex to implement in
> > code, the real challenge is to implement them in the brain of all
> > developers and reviewers.
> 
> I'd be very interested in a discussions about existing best practices
> already developed in different subsystems and figuring out what
> minimal standards we should requires across the board.

So would I. The same topic is being discussed in the "stable issues" mail 
thread, it thus looks like a good candidate to me. On the V4L side Hans 
Verkuil (CC'ed) would likely be interested as a core V4L reviewer and 
userspace test case developer.

-- 
Regards,

Laurent Pinchart