Seeking advice on "monkey patching" a driver

[jim.cromie at gmail.com]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 2:03 PM Ian Pilcher <arequipeno at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/1/21 12:59 PM, Greg KH wrote:
> > Oh that's horrible, please no, do not do that :)
>
> Indeed it is, but it works, and it meets my main objective, which is to
> allow the use of distribution kernel packages and modules.
>
> > How about a third option, the correct one:
> >       - submit your code changes upstream and they get merged into the
> >         main kernel tree and no monkeypatching is ever needed at all!
> >
> > Have you submitted your changes upstream to the existing drivers?  What
> > is preventing that from happening today?
>
> There are a couple of reasons that I've never attempted to do this.
>
> * Scope of work - Currently, there is simply no mechanism to call an LED
> * (Probable) lack of upstream interest - As I mentioned, disk activity
>    LEDs really ought to be handled by the hardware.

Are LEDs really that important?
Unless theyre rigged intrinsically into the operation, it seems tertiary



  I don't know of any
>    other system that suffers from this particular limitation.  So this
>    is a very, very niche use case.  (Most users of this hardware use the
>    manufacturer's "firmware".)
>
>    I did ask about this on the linux-ide mailing list long ago when I
>    first wrote the modules, but I don't think that I ever received a
>    response, which reinforces my belief that upstream isn't likely to be
>    receptive.
>

theres a firehose of patches.

FWIW, now robots watch the list, and will grind your patches on lots
of configs. arches



> I've invested significant time in kernel patches in the past, only to
> see them ultimately not be accepted, so I would need to know that
> upstream was truly interested in such a feature before I would consider
> making such a commitment.
>

no guarantees, but there is staging. (here, more or less)
provisional home for code while quality develops
once youre in-tree, warts and all (to some extent, I dont know)
you may well get help (patches) improving it, surely lots of feedback.



elsewhere, nobody knows it exists.