Re: CVS commit: src/sys/miscfs/specfs

[Antti Kantee <pooka%cs.hut.fi@localhost>]

On Tue Apr 13 2010 at 13:25:24 +0000, Andrew Doran wrote:
> So the result of our teeth-pulling so far is:
> 
> 1. You are concerned about namespace conflicts.  I am too.
> 2. I would be happy to see these managed through documentation and
>    a straightforward approval process for adding modules.

There is an additional pitfall with this.  We don't control all modules
and cannot be sure potential 3rd parties use the same processes.

> 3. You suggest that it would be better for the computer to manage it.

Maybe not manage it, but at least detect it and fail gracefully.

> Can you suggest an alternative mechanism that will (a) allow us to
> autoload things that are not anointed device drivers and (b) satisfy
> your concerns?

devfs ;)

IOW, Given that we don't know where we most likely are in 6 months,
I'm not too keen on trying to spend energy to solve this right now ...

> As an example of something that wants autoloading both as a file
> system and a driver, see ZFS.

... if zfs is the only use case, since IIUC it's broken anyway.

Meanwhile, if there is something else which is catastrophically broken
due to lack of holy christening, we can revisit this and see if just
flipping the switch and maybe writing a simple audit script to verify
no collisions is the path of least wailing (this would be close to "2").