Subject: Re: As usage of ethtool private flags is deprecated, what should we use from now on?

From: Jakub Kicinski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 May 2023 08:50:21 -0700

On Tue, 9 May 2023 11:15:57 +0000 Sokolowski, Jan wrote:
> So, as recently I've been trying to upstream a patch that would
> introduce a new private flag to i40e driver, I've received a note
> that, according to this reply from Jakub Kicinski
> (https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/[email-masked]/),
> the use of private flags is deprecated and is something that will not
> be accepted by upstream anymore. 

It has little to do with ethtool private flags being deprecated 
and a lot to do with how you were trying to use them. Andrew 
explains it well.

Maybe we should have called them "my device is weird flags", 
so people don't think they are "do whatever you want" flags :(