On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 03:14:49PM -0700, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 10:49:36AM -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> > I think -updates should continue focusing on providing stable,
> > _released_ drivers. For the beta drivers, we could add a third package,
> > nvidia-experimental, which would be used when needed by specific games.
> >
> > -experimental would be marketed as "bleeding edge / unstable" but would
> > be provisioned in much the same way as -updates. We would like to
> > commit to an objective of a 3-day turn around from when the driver
> > becomes available to when it is officially available for users to
> > install.
> >
> > Would the tech board be open to allowing this specific package to follow
> > an expedited SRU process?
> >
> > How I'm thinking it'd work in practice is, we would package and upload
> > the driver to -proposed and file a minimal SRU bug report (basically
> > just the Impact section; we're unlikely to know details). We'd then
> > have the game vendor verify the driver from -proposed works with their
> > game. The SRU admin would then be able to wave it through at that
> > point.
>
> +1, I think this sounds good. I think the benefits outweigh the risk.
>
> The risk I see is in wondering what percentage of the install base will
> end up on it as a result of a game install. If it's large, we run a
> larger risk of breaking someone in the face of a update regression.
I share this concern. The problem with introducing this kind of
"bleeding-edge, but important things may need it" package is that over
time enough important things need it that you find that it's become
critical-must-not-break without you noticing, and then you end up back
at the start of the cycle.
Bryce, you mention "used when needed by specific games" above. I'm not
really familiar with the details here and I'd like to ensure I know
exactly what you mean. Is this something that's per-X-session, so we're
talking about using it when any of a set of specific games are
installed, or per-application, so you could run multiple games in the
same session with different drivers?
Even in the latter case, I can imagine an uncomfortable situation where
we do an -experimental update for Important Game Vendor A and find that
it breaks Important Game Vendor B's best-selling title from last month.
Would we need to arrange testing with all sufficiently important vendors
before releasing updates? (But then we have the problem where we can't
release a fix for Important Game Vendor A because Important Game Vendor
B hasn't responded, and the incentives here may well be perverse ...)
--
Colin Watson [cjwat...@ubuntu.com]
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