On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 11:29 AM, Michel Machado <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi there, > > We have been developing Linux XIA, a new network stack that emphasizes > evolvability and interoperability, for a couple of years, and it has now > reached a degree of maturity that allows others to experiment with it. In > addition to the kernel implementation, we have a userland tool to set up the > stack, a Wireshark fork with extensions for XIA packets, an implemented > solution to interoperate with IPv4 networks, forwarding performance > evaluation of our code, support for Linux containers, and an exemplifying > demo; all documented on our wiki [1]. Outlining the full benefits of XIA > goes beyond the scope of this e-mail, but we present an in-depth discussion > on our wiki and in our peer-reviewed academic publications referenced there. > > Linux XIA is not yet mature enough for production, but we do think that > broader exposure will help us to move forward faster, and get more in tune > with the interested community. Thus, we are writing to ask to merge our work > into the Linux kernel. > > We are aware of all of the effort required to review a large chunk of > code, so to lower this burden, we propose to merge our new network stack via > staging. This would give time for the community at large to get acquainted > with XIA's concepts, and review the code. Of course, we will address > feedback as it comes in. We're aware that the current Linux staging process > [2] is geared toward drivers and filesystems, but not network stacks. We're > fine with clearly marking Linux XIA as being under staging as well as > helping to define this review process for network stacks. > > Linux XIA is highly confined in its folder net/xia. There are a few > headers in folder include/net, but all the names of these headers are of the > form xia_*.h. Patches outside these files are minimal. This high isolation > is a guarantee that Linux XIA can be dropped out of the kernel with little > work if needed. > > Finally, there are several other research groups around the world working > on other future Internet architectures. We hope that the process of merging > Linux XIA will provide a template for these other groups to merge their > network stacks into Linux in the future.
>From my point of view (far outside the networking world and completely incompetent to judge the merits of XIA), this email seems like a reasonable starting point for a discussion, and I'm disappointed that it got shut down so fast. It might not be in *exactly* the form people are looking for, but hey, it's an introductory email, and Michel seems open to constructive feedback. Bjorn -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [email protected] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
