RE: [PATCH] Unify sysfs filenames for firmware version

["Salyzyn, Mark" <mark_salyzyn@adaptec.com>]

Jonathan McDowell [mailto:noodles@earth.li] sez:
> On Tue, Nov 20, 2007 at 12:49:49PM -0500, Salyzyn, Mark wrote:
> > The aacraid cards, which uses hba_monitor_version, 
> > hba_kernel_version and hba_bios_version for each piece
> > does not fit into the single 'firmware revision' common ideal
> While I've used the aacraid cards in the past I think I agree
> with you that no 1 of those 3 pieces of information represents
> the firmware. Perhaps it could export a triplet though?

A single can be used in 99% of all cases, OEM or users can muck
it up. I would 'vote' for hba_kernel_version == fw_version.

Maybe add a companion standard for hba_bios_version == bios_version
and hba_monitor_version == exec_version (executive_version) if other
cards can supply such info ...

> Management stuff always seems to be tied to a single card. It's one of
> the things that puts me off hardware RAID.

There are 113 cards this driver works for in concert. Maybe my tail
feathers are showing ;->

> Do the management folks actually have some ideas about what sort of
> interface they'd like in sysfs?

Simple answer:
	No

Detailed answer (I digress):

They love ioctls as a commonality across all operating
systems and a pass-through to proprietary firmware
portals: binary, bidirectional, atomic and freely
formatted migrating structures that do not herd the
cats into just one specification. These are all
eventually presented as documented stable objects
exported by a sizeable C++ StorLib(tm) library that
provides the consistent interface that the OEMs and
Adaptec use to the higher level install, event, GUI
and CLI applications. Driver is only involved as a
transport.

Sincerely -- Mark Salyzyn
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