[ntp:questions] Issues with ACCORD Reference Clock Driver

Hal Murray hal-usenet at ip-64-139-1-69.sjc.megapath.net
Tue Dec 4 08:36:05 UTC 2007


>Over the years and with some effort several drivers now support more 
>than one device. All TrueTime models are supported by one driver; all 
>Spectracom models by another and all telephone modem services by a 
>third. With few exceptions, a NMEA radio is a NMEA radio and I strongly 
>suspect many of those drivers could be combined in one driver.

The NMEA driver already handles many more types of gizmos than
most other drivers.  I have 4 or 5 (and 2 more untested) within
arms reach.


>You don't appreciate how tedious the support process is when some 
>important thing or other requires a minute change in the common 
>interface (nanoseconds unstead of microseconds) and modifications to 46 
>files. The urge for utmost KISS and fewest driver files in the public 
>distribution is very strong. The problem is that the distribution build 
>process is so intricate that few refclock builders, including me, can 
>figure out how to incorporate a new driver in a private distribution 
>other than as a cuckoo of a current one.

It would be neat to solve this mess.  I'm not sure I have any
great suggestions.

Maybe there should be two classes of drivers.  Class 1 drivers
come with the official distribution.  Class 2 get supported by
some other mechanism.  That might make sense if somebody was
willing to keep track of driver numbers, or somebody figures
out a way to do the linking without driver numbers.  (The changes
to clockstats and peerstats would be "interesting".  Maybe
replace the IP address with <name>.<index> or something like that.

Or maybe the boundary could be fuzzy.  You fixup the drivers you
like and the rest of them are disabled until somebody fixes them
up too.  I'd be willing to do that for any driver I'm interested
in.  If you want to make a big change, you just shoot all the drivers
you don't like.  They are no-go until somebody rescues them.

That way the distribution mechanism carries the "best" copy of a
driver even if it doesn't compile/build right now.

-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.




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