Xserver driver merging pros & cons

[Chase Douglas]

On 09/15/2011 02:41 PM, Matt Turner wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 11:45 AM, Jesse Barnes <jbarnes at virtuousgeek.org> wrote:
>> Pros:
>>  1) easier to propagate API changes across drivers (just like Linux)
>>     1a) thus easier to change ABI
> 
> I suppose that's true. How often are we breaking the ABI though? How
> often do we break the ABI and it doesn't get fixed in the drivers we
> care about within a day or so? It's strange to sort of pretend that we
> care about other drivers simply for the point of this argument.

This needs an extra sub-point:
1b) thus easier to git-bisect issues

The problems enterprise distros may have with merging the drivers back
into the server may be offset by this point. I used to work in a much
more enterprise-like distro role before I began at Canonical, and I can
attest that bisectable sources were a *big* win when a bug was
reproducible and the sources could actually be bisected. The current X
approach fails the latter condition.

-- Chase