2011/5/26 Neil Horman [off-list ref]:

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 05:32:08PM +0800, Américo Wang wrote:

quoted

I don't think other drivers are supposed to use this function to register
a packet handler, which is an important difference from my view.

Note you just referred to the bridge/bond and vlan code as 'drivers' :).  And
why is that function the gating factor?  Why not register_netdev?  or
netif_receive_skb or dev_add_pack?  They all relate to the creation of device
interface and the reception of network data.

The fact is, bonding/bridging/vlans/tunnels/etc all have aspects that
make them more than just drivers.  They are where they are for a myrriad of
reasons.  Moving them around changes their location, but does _nothing_ about
the underlying fact that they're driver code plus other stuff, and as such
provides no real advantage in terms of organization.

If you want to draw a line between net/ and drivers/net I propose
following idea:

net/ - everything that is about networking (or library for it) and
interacts only within the system (kernel<->user, or in-kernel)
drivers/net/ - everything that is a connecting point between the
system and external world - be it hardware, other VMs or hypervisor.

net/ would include wireless stack, all kinds of loopback devices,
tunnels (incl. vlan), bridging, bonding, tuntap, etc.
drivers/net/ would keep only what is hardware or external ABI dependent

Just my 2 cents (3 grosze ;-).

Best Regards,
Michał Mirosław