Kernel space: udev rules, but whose?

The only problem is that some distributors aren't playing along. Marco d'Itri, the Debian udev maintainer, responded that a common set of udev rules is "not going to happen." The default rules, he says, do not meet Debian's need to support older kernels, and, besides, "I consider my rules much more readable and elegant than yours". Ubuntu maintainer Scott James Remnant is also reluctant to use the default rules.

Scott appears to be willing to consider a change to the default rules if it can be made to work right; Marco, instead, seems determined to hold out. When encouraged to send patches to improve the default rules (and make them more elegant), he responded:

It appears likely that most of the distributors will come to see the udev rules as code which is to be maintained upstream; even Debian may come along eventually. As this happens, the layer of "plumbing" which sits just on top of the kernel should be worked into better shape. Kernel developers may find themselves involved in this process; David has posted a proposal that all new kernel subsystems, before being merged, must be provided with a set of udev rules. That would help the udev developers get a set of default rules into shape before the distributors feel the need to step in to make things work.

Increasingly, the operation of the kernel is being tied to a set of low-level user-space applications; there is not much which can be done with a bare kernel. How all of this low-level plumbing should work, and how it should interoperate with the kernel, is still being worked out. The management of udev policies is just one of the outstanding issues. So the upcoming Linux Plumbers Conference would seem to be well timed; there's a lot to talk about.