Re: Call for testing: emu10kx driver for Creative sound cards

Warner Losh wrote:
>>giving.  I'd really like to see namespaces and name prefixes defined
>>that have stable/unstable meaning.  I dropped this due to the very
>>vocal opposition at the time.
> 
> 
> Sounds like a good thing to me.  If we document this (and the bit that
> I sent in my other email) in sysctl(8), or somewhere more appropriate,
> then I think we can do this.  I propose that we put a single _ in
> front of those sysctls that the author knows will go away and that no
> code should be written to use them.  this would give the unstable
> namespace that you want and would be consistant with what _foo()
> functions are for.  Not sure if that means everything else is
> permanant, however.  I'm hoping this doesn't result in a bikeshed of
> doom.
> 
> Warner

Sounds good.  I guess what this means is that the entire sysctl
namespace should be considered stable except for a set of defined areas.
These defined areas will either be specifically designated and
documented, or will have a '_' prefixing some element of their node
name.  Developers still have a responsibility to put proper thought into
what they add into the stable namespace, and this space may be subject
to change while the tree is marked "-CURRENT".  However, once it is
marked "-STABLE", it is stable and can only be changed by following
appropriate deprecation procedures.

For the purposes of documentation, it should be described that there are
actually 3 types of nodes.  There are stable, statically named nodes
that will always exist on a running system.  There are unstable,
statically named nodes that may or may not exist from one release to
another.  And there are dynamic nodes that will exist depending on the
devices, modules, and drivers present, and that these nodes may be
stable or unstable depending on other attributes of the node name.

Scott