[Fedora-packaging] kernel module packaging

[Tom 'spot' Callaway]

On Sat, 2006-06-03 at 01:47 +0100, Jon Masters wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> I'm working on some to-be-proposed updates to the kernel module
> packaging in Fedora Extras to allow us to track changes to the kernel
> ABI rather than purely the kernel release/version. This should make
> life easier and help to reduce the number of times that a minor kernel
> update (e.g. security fixes, etc.) forces all external drivers to be
> rebuilt.

I'm not so sure this will work for Fedora. The ABI in the kernel is
utterly inconsistent, and no work is being done upstream to try and keep
the ABI consistent or predictable.

In fact, in the majority of cases, a kernel module built against one
kernel release/version will only work against that release/version.
Effectively, the only ABI we can control in Fedora is the one for that
kernel release/version.

Now, RHEL is different, but these guidelines are Fedora specific.

~spot
-- 
Tom "spot" Callaway: Red Hat Senior Sales Engineer || GPG ID: 93054260
Fedora Extras Steering Committee Member (RPM Standards and Practices)
Aurora Linux Project Leader: http://auroralinux.org
Lemurs, llamas, and sparcs, oh my!