[RFC] In-tree documentation of driver deviations for Lucid and Maverick

[Stefan Bader]

On 11/23/2010 05:08 PM, Brad Figg wrote:
> On 11/23/2010 08:05 AM, Stefan Bader wrote:
>> On 11/23/2010 04:58 PM, Brad Figg wrote:
>>> On 11/23/2010 06:16 AM, Stefan Bader wrote:
>>>> As discussed on UDS, we want to document driver deviations in a file, to make
>>>> automated checks possible and to have the documentation even simpler to find.
>>>>
>>>> May proposal would be a file called debian.master/deviations.txt (which would
>>>> allow to add additional debian.*/deviations.txt for topic branches).
>>>>
>>>> The contents are similar to the MAINTAINERS file. Attached are the prepared
>>>> files for Lucid and Maverick.
>>>>
>>>> Comments? Objections? Modifications? Agreement?
>>>>
>>>> -Stefan
>>>>
>>>
>>> Looks good. I do have one thing to consider. If you're going to use this as the
>>> input for scripts, I'd suggest using json data format. This is easy to read text
>>> and the best part is it easily loads into python as a dictionary or list or whatever
>>> you want. Also it means that the name/value pairs can be readable strings instead
>>> of single letter abbreviations. I use this format all the time now and have
>>> convinced others to use it as well.
>>>
>> Well this is maybe simpler for python, but the target was to look like the
>> maintainers file and this is what it looks like. Likely a bit harder on the
>> parsing script but I am on that.
>>
>> -Stefan
>>
>>> Two entries would look something like:
>>>
>>> {
>>>       "drm subsystem" : {
>>>           "mailing list" : "kernel-team at lists.ubuntu.com",
>>>           "repo"         : "git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/smb/linux-2.6.32.y-drm33.z.git",
>>>           "files"        : [
>>>               "drivers/gpu/drm/*",
>>>               "include/drm/*"
>>>           ],
>>>           "comments"     : "Graphics bugs were claimed to be not fixable in 2.6.32. All upstream
>>>       	                  had moved to 2.6.33 and abandoned 2.6.32.
>>> 	                  The combined 2.6.32.y/DRM33.z tree is maintained as an upstream source
>>> 	                  for Ubuntu and Debian."
>>>       },
>>>
>>>       "sfc driver" : {
>>>           "mailing list" : "kernel-team at lists.ubuntu.com",
>>>           "repo"         : "git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.6.33.y.git",
>>>           "files"        : ["drivers/net/sfc/*"],
>>>           "comments"     : "Was requested in order to support newer servers and driver had changed
>>> 	                  beyond a point to SRU it later.
>>>                            "
>>>       }
>>>
>>> }
>>>
>>
>>
> 
> So looking like the maintainers list was a hard requirement?
> 
That sort of was said on UDS. And probably I am not in the group of people that
got convinced to the JSON format either. To me the the format of the maintainers
file looks much simpler and clean (and easier to type as me).
Now if there is a great rising of people all in favour of JSON, I do not want to
fight for it. Just that I like the other thing better. :)

-Stefan