[lustre-devel] A new drivers/staging/lustre

[NeilBrown <neilb@suse.com>]

On Thu, Jun 07 2018, Doug Oucharek wrote:

> What is the focus of landings in this tree?  There are two things needing to be done for an upstream Lustre:
>
>
>   *   Get the source code to meet the Linux guidelines so it is acceptable to be in mainline.
>   *   Get the binary product to have all the features and bug fixes that are in the Intel community tree so end users are interested in using the upstream version (users are unlikely to use a version of Lustre which is not current).
>
> For the now-deleted staging area, we were supposed to be focusing on the first item but were submitting patches for the second item (syncing with Intel tree).  In my opinion, this is the core reason for never being able to get out of staging and getting deleted.

My (undoubtedly biased) perspective on the history of lustre in staging
goes like this:
There are two things needed for some out-of-tree code to get into
mainline Linux:  the code needs to be integrated and the community needs
to be integrated (or a new sub-community needs to form).
In the case of lustre, the code was never really integrated because the
community never really tried to integrate.  Integrating and becoming
part of the Linux community takes time and effort, and it is quite
possible that management for various developers didn't allocate enough
time over a long enough period.  Integrating also requires a change in
attitude and I don't see much evidence of that.  I see clear evidence of
an "us and them" attitude among (some) lustre developers - almost as
though upstream linux is hostile territory full of unfriendly developers
who always reject our excellent code (even though they have lots of
horrible code themselves).  *We* need to see ourselves as part of the
Linux community, and we need to care about all of Linux as though it was
all ours (it *is* all ours, but *we* are a much larger group now).

Yes, the current code needs to be improved, bugs need to be fixed, and
features need to be added.  The order in which these is done is not the
most important things - if it were, Greg would have never accepted any
new features.  However he *did* accept them, but tried to remind the
lustre developers that there was other work to do.

Working together in one (single) community requires give-and-take.
Greg's behaviour as just described seems to be evidence of
give-and-take.  I think he kicked lustre out of staging because he
concluded that he was never going to get the matching give-and-take in
return.

So to answer your opening question, my focus for this tree is to train
any lustre developers who wish to engage about how to be part of the
Linux community.  As I've already said - I will accept features but I
prefer cleanups first.  I don't want to try to explain further than that
because it will be too hypothetical and unhelpful.  We - the Linux
community - don't work in hypotheticals.  We work with concrete objects
like patches.  So send me a patch and I will tell you what I think of
that specific patch.  It is up to you to generalise what I say to other
patches.  It might also be up to you to argue your case and tell me why
I'm wrong.  I'll be patient (because good upstream maintainers are) but
patience doesn't last forever (for Greg, it lasted about 5 years - I
hope mine won't be tried to that extent).

>
> There are some very big (as in code size) features missing from
> upstream.  For example, Multi-Rail.  When should that be pushed
> relative to code cleanups?

Never add features to ugly code - fix the code first.
The doesn't mean you cannot add any feature to lustre until all of
lustre is beautify.  But it does mean that if I can see in a patch some
ugly code and a new feature, then I won't be happy.  First clean up just
enough of the ugliness so that it won't be visible in the patch that
adds the feature.
But again, this is getting a bit too hypothetical.   If you care about a
feature, then post a patch.  We can take it from there.  The fact that
you care enough to post a patch cares significant weight - a lot more
weight than just asking about some feature.

Thanks,
NeilBrown
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