Kconfig Dependencies in Linux
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Quoted 1 line · Sarah Nadi
Hi Grant,
Sarah,
If you have specific questions about Kconfig files (and the rules they embed), my advice is to ask on linux kernel mailing list. You'll get the answers you are looking for.
For specific projects that use the kernel, like parisc-linux or Chrome OS (my day job), ask on those respective mailing lists:
[email protected] (cc'd)
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!forum/chromium-os-dev
Asking random people listed in MAINTAINERS is just going to get you a lot of negative feedback.
cheers,
grant
Quoted 32 lines
I am a researcher at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. As part of a research team with members from both the University of Waterloo and Carnegie Mellon University, USA, we are interested in creating automated tools for large configurable software. We are currently working on automatically reverse engineering configuration constraints from code to provide tools that support automatic creation of
Kconfigdependencies (i.e., the variability model) as well as consistency checks between the code and the variability model. We have tested our infrastructure on four different open-source systems. For the Linux kernel, we have already been able to automatically extract 31% of theKconfigconstraints from the code. We are currently investigating the cases we could not automatically recover to understand how variability modeling is used in practice, and what kind of constraints do developers usually enforce.To improve our tools, and to better understand the configuration constraints enforced, we are interested in interviewing developers who have worked with
Kconfig.Theinterview would take only around 15-20 minutes of your time where we would discuss your related development practices, and some examples ofKconfigconstraints we could not automatically detect. Interviews can be conducted over the phone or Skype. Alternatively, I can also email you a questionnaire if you would prefer that.Please let me know if you would be willing to participate.
Thanks,
Sarah Nadi
PhD candidate
University of Waterloo, ON, Canada
http://swag.uwaterloo.ca/~snadi
Hi Grant,
Thanks for your feedback. I was actually specifically targetting developers who have committed to the Kconfig files before as far as I could tell from the kernel's git repository rather than randomly picking people listed in MAINTAINERS. I do have questions about certain dependencies, but I also want to get the general intuition behind when a Kconfig dependency is enforced, and if there is external/domain knowledge that comes into play. This is why I was interested in talking to developers.
In all cases, I do appreciate the advice!
Sarah
Quoted 18 lines · Grant Grundler
Quoted 1 line · Sarah Nadi
Hi Grant,
Sarah,
If you have specific questions aboutKconfigfiles (and the rules they embed), my advice is to ask on linux kernel mailing list. You'll get the answers you are looking for.For specific projects that use the kernel, like parisc-linux or Chrome OS (my day job), ask on those respective mailing lists:
[email protected] (cc'd)
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!forum/chromium-os-devAsking random people listed in
MAINTAINERSis just going to get you a lot of negative feedback.cheers,
grant