PSARC 2008/443 Driver for LSI MPT2.0 compliant SAS 2.0 controller

[Darren J Moffat]

Garrett D'Amore wrote:
> Darren J Moffat wrote:
>> Garrett D'Amore wrote:
>>> Frank Che wrote:
>>>> The project team would like to change the release binding of this 
>>>> project from micro to patch, for back-porting purpose. If there is 
>>>> any concern on this, please let the project team know.
>>>>
>>>> I think this change is qualified for self review. If there is 
>>>> concern, I can upgrade it to a fast track.
>>>
>>> I think since you requested micro binding originally, this is 
>>> trivially obvious.  Indeed, I think many people these days treat 
>>> micro binding as synonymous with patch binding.   (We haven't had a 
>>> "micro" release since Solaris 2.5.1.)
>>>
>>> For C-Team's point of view, I think you can just go ahead and proceed 
>>> as if you originally requested patch binding.
>>
>> There is a very important difference between micro and patch though 
>> and that is the delivery mechanism.  A micro release can be assumed to 
>> be fresh installer or upgraded to but a patch release could need the 
>> feature applied by 'patchadd' as well as being upgraded to in a fresh 
>> bitted release. This case introduces a new package (SUNWmptsas) so as 
>> long as that can be properly dealt with in the patch release train I 
>> have no problem with the change of binding.
>>
> 
> C-Team is apparently confused... while the driver is intended for the 
> feature-patch gate (i.e. for delivery as part of a Solaris 10 update), 
> they have made a point of requesting the project go back and ask for 
> patch binding.

I don't think the C-Team is confused.  Solaris 10 updates are not micro 
releases they are patch binding releases.

>> Also for drivers in particular the difference between micro and patch 
>> can be important if the device is needed as a boot device (which I 
>> assume would be the case for some hardware with the driver form this 
>> case).
>>
> I'm not sure that the distinction matters that much in practice.

In general it doesn't but there are cases were it does, in particular 
some times it is difficult to patch something into existence or worse 
once in hard to get out (upgrade is one way but patches can be backed out).

-- 
Darren J Moffat