Re: [virtio] Re: [virtio-comment] allocating device IDs without a vote

[Mihai Carabas <mihai.carabas@oracle.com>]

On 10/30/2020 2:16 PM, Cornelia Huck wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Oct 2020 11:30:09 +0100
> Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@siemens.com> wrote:
>
> > On 30.10.20 11:23, Dr. David Alan Gilbert wrote:
> > > * Michael S. Tsirkin (mst@redhat.com) wrote:
> > > > At the Virtio BoF at the virtual KVM forum, 2020, a recurring theme was
> > > > the difficulty contributors face in obtaining device IDs for new
> > > > devices. As allocating a new ID is a technicality, and can not break
> > > > existing devices, it does not sound too bad to skip a voting step in
> > > > that process.
> > >
> > > It would seem reasonable to define what the expectations, if any are,
> > > about the use of those IDs:
> > >
> > > Is it expected that the allocator of such an ID would eventually
> > > end a request to merge a spec for the device, or are they free
> > > not to?
> > >
> > > If merging is expected, then is it acceptable to recycle IDs that have
> > > not been defined after n-Years.
> > >    
> >
> > Lowering the barrier for grabbing IDs too much and not establishing a
> > garbage collection mechanism can eventually shoot back, IMHO.
>
> Maybe we really need two things:
>
> - a "private" range, that anyone can use for playing etc.
> - an easy way to request an ID, combined with some kind of garbage
>    collection
>
> We currently do have some IDs without a spec, but we really need to
> keep some of them reserved, as there are already (sometimes legacy)
> devices out there.
>
> Perhaps there needs to be some kind of annotation? If you reserve an ID
> via the quick mechanism, it gets a "reserved until YYYY-MM-DD", and
> that tag gets removed when a proper spec is merged? For
> "in-the-wild-do-not-reuse" IDs, we'd still require a vote, as the
> default should be to have a proper spec if you want something outside
> of the private namespace.

I agree with Cornelia and Jan.

Thank you,
Mihai Carabas