Subject: Re: netmap, VALE and netmap pipes

From: Kevin Bowling <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 13:33:36 -0700

On 2/17/2014 1:14 PM, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 12:12:36 -0700
> Kevin Bowling <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> On 2/17/2014 3:11 AM, Luigi Rizzo wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> we have recently made a few extensions to netmap/VALE and put various
>>> pieces of code on public repositories, so i thought i'd share the
>>> pointers. All the code below runs with equal features and performance
>>> on FreeBSD and Linux, and we are trying to upstream it in the relevant
>>> projects if possible (as an example, QEMU recently added a netmap backend),
>>> at which point some of these clone repositories will become unnecessary.
>>
>> Just a thought, maybe this is a good time for The FreeBSD Foundation to
>> reach out to The Linux Foundation for lobbying netmap into their main
>> line kernel.  It would be nice if netmap becomes the de facto UNIX
>> standard for this type of programming (it is vendor neutral and broadly
>> applicable vs other solutions), and avoid not-invented-here APIs like
>> non-blocking I/O went through with all the UNIX flavors.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Kevin Bowling

Hi Stephen,

> You do not understand the role of Linux Foundation.
> Lobbying would only serve to annoy the developers.

I attempted to say that with tongue in cheek and am sorry if I offended 
anyone.

> Netmap was submitted and rejected for a number of issues.
> Read the netdev mailing list archives if you want to follow what
> is going on.

I am not familiar with the situation on the Linux side.  My hope is that 
the opportunity window is not lost if there is a possibility for one API 
on both platforms.

Regards,
Kevin Bowling