[PATCH 1/5] ptp: Added a brand new class driver for ptp clocks.

[Kyle Moffett]

On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 18:30, John Stultz <johnstul at us.ibm.com> wrote:
> On one side, there is the view that the kernel should abstract and hide
> the hardware details to increase app portability. And the other is that
> the raw hardware details should be exposed, so the OS stays out of the
> way.
>
> Neither of these views are always right. Ideally we can come up with a
> abstracted way to provide the hardware data needed that's generic enough
> that applications don't have to be changed when moving between hardware
> or configurations.
>
> The posix clock id interface is frustrating because the flat static
> enumeration is really limiting.
>
> I wonder if a dynamic enumeration for posix clocks would be possibly a
> way to go?

Well how about something much more straightforward:

#define CLOCK_FD 0x80000000
fd = open("/dev/clocks/some_clock_name", O_RDONLY);
clock_gettime(CLOCK_FD | fd, &ts);

This would provide all of the standard character-device semantics that
everyone is accustomed to, and furthermore you could allow non-root
users to manage specific clocks using just DAC permission bits.

You'd still probably need to add a clock_adjtimex() syscall, but it
could easily fail with EINVAL for software or per-thread clocks, but
that seems like it would nicely abstract the hardware without forcing
a numeric address space.

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett