On Thu, 5 Jun 2025 00:16:51 +0200 Jan Bramkamp <cr...@rlwinm.de> wrote:
> On 05.06.25 00:04, Warner Losh wrote: > > > > > > On Wed, Jun 4, 2025, 2:57 PM Jan Bramkamp <cr...@rlwinm.de> wrote: > > > > On 04.06.25 19:51, Bjoern A. Zeeb wrote: > > > Hello, > > > > > > Cc: wireless, current, stable, desktop > > > > > > FreeBSD WiFi development has regained traction. We are facing a > > > decision with FreeBSD 15 coming before the end of this year [1]. > > > > > > In order to continue WiFi development, upcoming changes will > > inevitably > > > break the net80211-driver and net80211-userland interfaces. > > > By FreeBSD's standards those would not be mergeable to stable > > branches, > > > such as stable/15 then. > > > > > > This would imply development happening in FreeBSD 16-CURRENT > > (main at > > > that point) would stay there. The first release to ship > > anything major > > > beyond now would be FreeBSD 16.0 in December 2027 [1]. > > > > > > After some discussion we think this is not a feasible solution > > and we > > > will declare the KPI and KBI for wireless as unstable in FreeBSD 15. > > > > > > This allows us to merge changes from main into stable/15 for > > inclusion > > > in future point releases (e.g., 15.1, 15.2, etc.) as the code > > matures. > > > However, this also means that during the lifetime of FreeBSD 15, > > we may > > > introduce breaking changes affecting out-of-tree and in-tree > > drivers, > > > userland-kernel interfaces, and chipsets. We will address these > > > disruptions as they arise. > > > > > > Before finalizing this decision, we invite feedback from the > > community. > > > If you have concerns or objections, please speak up now. > > > > > If the breaking changes are already known it would probably be > > best get > > stubs into the 15-stable ABI, +1 for this idea to minimize pains. Adding possibly-wanted things as stubs, placeholders a bit excessively would help for K"B"I/A"B"I stabilities while only additions using the stubs/placeholders are done, IMHO. And we can break K[P|B]I / A[P|B]I again on 16 to prune anything turned out to be unneeded and reorder things which harms to maintain codes and/or performances / efficiencies. > > but otherwise go ahead declare the ABI unstable. > > > > Please keep in mind that WiFi could be a users only available network > > connectivity and treat it the the care it deserves in the release > > notes. > > > > Is there a release engineering checklist this could be added to until > > the ABI stabilizes again? > > > > > > If you update userland and kernel at the same time, life will be good. > > It's only when you have skew that there's a problem. So install both > > for src build, or update all the pkgbase packages at once. > > Are there neither WiFi driver kernel modules in ports nor any consumers > of the unstable ABIs (e.g. a WiFi manager other than the base system > wpa_supplicant)? Even if there's none just now, there's always possibilities in the future. ;-) Regards -- Tomoaki AOKI <junch...@dec.sakura.ne.jp>
