No stable driver/module api?

[Russell King - ARM Linux]

On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 08:13:16PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Sunday 23 June 2013 19:29:52 Per Strandh wrote:
> > 
> > I have now encountered one problem with this layout.
> > When upgrading the kernel, our driver in the root file system isn't
> > always compatible/loading.
> > 
> > When upgrading from 3.0.18 to 3.0.22 it worked out fine.
> > When upgrading from 3.0.22 to 3.0.23 the driver isn't loading.
> > When trying to load it if fails with the message:
> > - "disagrees about version of symbol module_layout"
> > 
> > We have configured the kernel with the option
> >  CONFIG_MODULE_FORCE_LOAD=y
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Isn't the driver/module api stable within the 3.0 track?
> 
> The API is generally stable, unless there is a serious bug,
> the ABI is not. If the API ever changes, you should get a build
> warning when recompiling your module.
> 
> The easiest way to deal with those changes is to keep your
> own code as a patch to the mainline kernel and build it all
> together. That also makes it easier for your to show that
> you are shipping the matching source code for all the
> binary kernel code.

Also remember that there's: Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt
which covers this topic.