<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif"> Hi Olof,</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif"> There are several reasons why
an Ethernet driver should have an up to date version number:</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">1. Customers like to see they are really
getting a new version.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">2. It makes it easier for support personnel
(me in this case) to see which driver they have. Sure, sometimes I can
talk them thru doing a "sum" on the .ko and all that, but why
not just use the version number? That's what it is for. And no, you can't
just assume they have the version that came with the kernel they are running.
It doesn't work that way.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">3. It makes bug reporting easier. </font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">4. I have already run into too many
problems and wasted too much time working with drivers when the number
was NOT getting updated. </font>
<br>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif"><br>
Jim Lewis<br>
Advisory Software Engineer<br>
IBM Linux Technology Center<br>
512-838-7754<br>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<table width=100%>
<tr valign=top>
<td width=40%><font size=1 face="sans-serif"><b>Olof Johansson <olof@lixom.net></b>
</font>
<p><font size=1 face="sans-serif">08/11/2006 01:00 PM</font>
<td width=59%>
<table width=100%>
<tr valign=top>
<td>
<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">To</font></div>
<td><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Linas Vepstas <linas@austin.ibm.com></font>
<tr valign=top>
<td>
<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">cc</font></div>
<td><font size=1 face="sans-serif">netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org, Jens Osterkamp <Jens.Osterkamp@de.ibm.com>,
James K Lewis/Austin/IBM@ibmus, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de></font>
<tr valign=top>
<td>
<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Subject</font></div>
<td><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Re: [PATCH 4/4]: powerpc/cell spidernet
ethtool -i version number info.</font></table>
<br>
<table>
<tr valign=top>
<td>
<td></table>
<br></table>
<br>
<br>
<br><tt><font size=2>On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 12:11:17PM -0500, Linas Vepstas
wrote:<br>
<br>
> This patch adds version information as reported by <br>
> ethtool -i to the Spidernet driver.<br>
<br>
Why does a driver that's in the mainline kernel need to have a version<br>
number besides the kernel version?<br>
<br>
I can understand it for drivers like e1000 that Intel maintain outside<br>
of the kernel as well. But spidernet is a fully mainline maintained<br>
driver, right?<br>
<br>
<br>
-Olof<br>
</font></tt>
<br>