Re: warning of pending commit attempt.

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 08:44:56PM -0800, Julian Elischer wrote:
> At some stage in the next few weeks I will be trying to commit
> Marco Zec's vimage code to -current. (only 'trying' not
> for technical reasons, but political).
> 
> I'm making this announcement because this is sure to be a controversial 
> move.
> 
> For those of you who do NOT know what it is, please go to
> the following website:
> 
>  http://imunes.tel.fer.hr/virtnet/
> 
> This project has been going for a whle and has been in production
> in its earlier versions in several places.
> 
> The current version referred to in the code is implemented in
> a manner that allows it to be COMPILED OUT. so that those who
> do not want the risk or teh performance gain/loss (yes it
> surprisingly seems to actually speed up some things) can
> compile it out and have a system that for all intents and
> purposes, is as it is now.

Is this true to the level of checksums of .o files?

> what do we gain?
>  Jail on steroids
>  A framework that can be extended to other virtualisation avenues.
>  The ability to have full virtual machines on almost any layout
>  of physical hardware.
> 
> Why now?
>   The code is in a shape where teh compiled out version of hte system is 
> stable. In the compiled in version, it is functional
> enough to provide nearly all of what people want. It needs people with 
> other interests to adapt it to their purposes and use it so that it can 
> become a solid product for future releases.

The website has a snapshot with a date over a month old and many
comments about unstable interfaces.  I've seen zero reports of
substantial testing...

> Solaris and Linux have seen what BSD can do with jails and have upped
> the ante. it's time for FreeBSD to tak our jails to teh next logical
> step.
> 
> As it will be committed it does have some missing parts to the jigsaw, but 
> it is complete enough that a system compiled in  this manner can
> be fully functional and fully backwards compatible.
> 
> Basically no userland changes need be made to get the full effect.
> 
> I expect the usual  nay-sayers no matter what is proposed, but
> I hope we can have a decent discussion about this..

From purely procedural perspective, the "next few weeks" seems rushed and
poorly motivated.  We're still finding and fixing bugs from the last
major round of network changes.  We should at least get the first batch
of 7.0 errata out the door before making changes that will certain make
merging non-trivial network stack changes more difficult.  We also need
credible, qualitative reports verifying that it works and what it's
impacts are.

Don't get me wrong.  I think this is interesting work and that it could
be a major asset to FreeBSD.  I also recognize that it should go in
in the next 6-9 months (12 at the outside) if it's not going to cause
problems with 8.0.  I simply don't see any valid motivation for doing it
with undue haste.

-- Brooks