perf tools: Add tools/include/uapi/README

Write down the reason why we keep a copy of headers to the README file
instead of adding it to every commit messages.

Suggested-by: Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@linux.intel.com>
Original-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org>
Original-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 73 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/tools/include/uapi/README b/tools/include/uapi/README
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..7147b1b2cb28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/include/uapi/README
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+Why we want a copy of kernel headers in tools?
+==============================================
+
+There used to be no copies, with tools/ code using kernel headers
+directly. From time to time tools/perf/ broke due to legitimate kernel
+hacking. At some point Linus complained about such direct usage. Then we
+adopted the current model.
+
+The way these headers are used in perf are not restricted to just
+including them to compile something.
+
+There are sometimes used in scripts that convert defines into string
+tables, etc, so some change may break one of these scripts, or new MSRs
+may use some different #define pattern, etc.
+
+E.g.:
+
+  $ ls -1 tools/perf/trace/beauty/*.sh | head -5
+  tools/perf/trace/beauty/arch_errno_names.sh
+  tools/perf/trace/beauty/drm_ioctl.sh
+  tools/perf/trace/beauty/fadvise.sh
+  tools/perf/trace/beauty/fsconfig.sh
+  tools/perf/trace/beauty/fsmount.sh
+  $
+  $ tools/perf/trace/beauty/fadvise.sh
+  static const char *fadvise_advices[] = {
+        [0] = "NORMAL",
+        [1] = "RANDOM",
+        [2] = "SEQUENTIAL",
+        [3] = "WILLNEED",
+        [4] = "DONTNEED",
+        [5] = "NOREUSE",
+  };
+  $
+
+The tools/perf/check-headers.sh script, part of the tools/ build
+process, points out changes in the original files.
+
+So its important not to touch the copies in tools/ when doing changes in
+the original kernel headers, that will be done later, when
+check-headers.sh inform about the change to the perf tools hackers.
+
+Another explanation from Ingo Molnar:
+It's better than all the alternatives we tried so far:
+
+ - Symbolic links and direct #includes: this was the original approach but
+   was pushed back on from the kernel side, when tooling modified the
+   headers and broke them accidentally for kernel builds.
+
+ - Duplicate self-defined ABI headers like glibc: double the maintenance
+   burden, double the chance for mistakes, plus there's no tech-driven
+   notification mechanism to look at new kernel side changes.
+
+What we are doing now is a third option:
+
+ - A software-enforced copy-on-write mechanism of kernel headers to
+   tooling, driven by non-fatal warnings on the tooling side build when
+   kernel headers get modified:
+
+    Warning: Kernel ABI header differences:
+      diff -u tools/include/uapi/drm/i915_drm.h include/uapi/drm/i915_drm.h
+      diff -u tools/include/uapi/linux/fs.h include/uapi/linux/fs.h
+      diff -u tools/include/uapi/linux/kvm.h include/uapi/linux/kvm.h
+      ...
+
+   The tooling policy is to always pick up the kernel side headers as-is,
+   and integate them into the tooling build. The warnings above serve as a
+   notification to tooling maintainers that there's changes on the kernel
+   side.
+
+We've been using this for many years now, and it might seem hacky, but
+works surprisingly well.
+