Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 27/27] Add SLOF-based partition firmware for pSeries machine, allowing more boot options

[Alexander Graf]

On 28.03.2011, at 15:02, Avi Kivity wrote:

> On 03/28/2011 02:53 PM, Alexander Graf wrote:
>> On 28.03.2011, at 14:49, Avi Kivity wrote:
>> 
>> >  On 03/28/2011 11:03 AM, Alexander Graf wrote:
>> >>  I'm also not sure this is too important. Most of our firmware blobs come 
>> >> from svn repos which can't be submoduled. And as long as we don't have a 
>> >> consistent policy about it, we can just as well stick with the README 
>> >> file.
>> >>
>> >
>> >  We can have a git mirror of the subversion repository hosted on 
>> > git.qemu.org, and submodule that.
>> 
>> *shrug* I'm fairly indifferent on that side. But whatever we do, it's out of 
>> scope of this patch set :). I personally don't mind the listing in the 
>> README file.
> 
> It depends on how often the code changes.  If it changes regularly and qemu 
> is expected to take in newer versions, then we need to record which slof 
> version comes with which qemu version.  Submodules do just that.

A commit id / tag in the README document it pretty well, no? Also, a README 
file is human readable. Submodules don't really buy anyone anything.

Normal users don't care about the source - they use the bundled binaries. 
Distributers will have to bundle the source code anyways, because the build 
process is always offline. You can't always build everything either, as there 
are targets in qemu that people don't have cross-compilers for.

It feels like the submodule idea is more of a feature that's "cool to play 
with" rather than of benefit for anyone.


Alex