On Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 09:32:25AM -0500, Greg Troxel wrote:

  > Perhaps coda support should be removed from the BSD base systems and
  > have to be a module, like xfs for arla.  That would address the
  > .h/code consistency issue.

  I think it's unlikely that removing Coda support from the FreeBSD base
  system would improve anything -- without meaning to offend, I don't think
  the Coda developers would be able to maintain the kernel code, given that

But the current situation is that (except for mechanical changes due
to global interface changes in the kernel) the coda developers do need
to maintain the kernel code.  Right now, it seems like I'm the de
facto maintainer of coda in NetBSD.  The other people speaking up and
helping me on tech-kern_at_netbsd.org have been vfs experts, not coda
types.

But, having the coda kernel code in the base system is helpful, since
the other interfaces that the code uses (vfs) are defined by the rest
of the kernel.

In arla, there is source for a kernel module xfs, presumably for
multiple operating systems, that comes with the arla sources.  This
makes it a lot eaiser to change the interface, because the /dev/xfs0
(like our /dev/cfs0) interface is then a private interface to the
software package, rather than a defined interface of the operating
system.  With this approach, it is reasonable to say 'update venus and
kernel module together'.  It's harder to say this with the coda
support in the base system, since then you get into patches.

I am beginning to think that having patches available to bring the
kernel interface up to realms would be good, and perhaps those would
come by default in some future BSD versions, with patches/#ifdef to
revert them.  I'm low on copious spare time this week; let me think
about this since I've wanted to run realms for a long time.

  even the userland parts (venus etc.) do not compile "out of the box" on any
  recent FreeBSD release (4.7, 4.8, 5.0). Otherwise it would be good: less
  code for FreeBSD developers to maintain, easier for Coda developers to
  update/keep in sync with other platforms.

Does -current coda really not build on 4-stable?  I haven't rebuilt in
a while on my FreeBSD box, which is tracking 4-stable.