[PATCH 4/4]: powerpc/cell spidernet ethtool -i version number info.

[James K Lewis]

 Hi Olof,

  There are several reasons why an Ethernet driver should have an up to 
date version number:

1. Customers like to see they are really getting a new version.

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.

3. It makes bug reporting easier. 

4. I have already run into too many problems and wasted too much time 
working with drivers when the number was NOT getting updated. 



Jim Lewis
Advisory Software Engineer
IBM Linux Technology Center
512-838-7754






Olof Johansson <olof at lixom.net> 
08/11/2006 01:00 PM

To
Linas Vepstas <linas at austin.ibm.com>
cc
netdev at vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel at vger.kernel.org, 
linuxppc-dev at ozlabs.org, Jens Osterkamp <Jens.Osterkamp at de.ibm.com>, James 
K Lewis/Austin/IBM at ibmus, Arnd Bergmann <arnd at arndb.de>
Subject
Re: [PATCH 4/4]: powerpc/cell spidernet ethtool -i version number info.






On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 12:11:17PM -0500, Linas Vepstas wrote:

> This patch adds version information as reported by 
> ethtool -i to the Spidernet driver.

Why does a driver that's in the mainline kernel need to have a version
number besides the kernel version?

I can understand it for drivers like e1000 that Intel maintain outside
of the kernel as well. But spidernet is a fully mainline maintained
driver, right?


-Olof

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