Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751790AbaLaRoZ (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Dec 2014 12:44:25 -0500 Received: from mail-qg0-f49.google.com ([209.85.192.49]:60711 "EHLO mail-qg0-f49.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751362AbaLaRoX (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Dec 2014 12:44:23 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20141231173113.GA443@thunk.org> References: <20141230212326.GA29263@pd.tnic> <54A328C2.5080606@lwfinger.net> <54A3D955.6020809@broadcom.com> <0BA3FCBA62E2DC44AF3030971E174FB31B5DD72E@hasmsx107.ger.corp.intel.com> <54A3E1F1.7030807@broadcom.com> <54A41000.3040306@broadcom.com> <20141231173113.GA443@thunk.org> Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 09:44:22 -0800 X-Google-Sender-Auth: 9fRlm9pqjQzTRTQv4Dgf2C2pX9A Message-ID: Subject: Re: [PATCH] Revert "cfg80211: make WEXT compatibility unselectable" From: Linus Torvalds To: "Theodore Ts'o" , Arend van Spriel , Jiri Kosina , "Grumbach, Emmanuel" , Linus Torvalds , Borislav Petkov , "linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org" , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , "egrumbach@gmail.com" , "peter@hurleysoftware.com" , "ilw@linux.intel.com" , "Berg, Johannes" , Larry Finger Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1814 Lines: 38 On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > > Most poeple are still using "route" and "ifconfig" instead of "ip". > Deal with it. Indeed. This whole "let's throw out the old and broken" stuff is a disease. It would have been much better (and it's still an option, as Ted points out) for the new commands to provide compatibility with what users - and scripts - have been doing for ages with the old ones. As it is, this inability for the new tools to just do what the old tools did clearly just means that not just the old tools, but all the old infrastructure, will need to be around for years to come. Thinking you can just start from a clean slate is naive, bordering on stupid. "New and improved" is only really improved if it also takes backwards compatibility into account, rather than saying "now everybody must do things the new and improved - and different - way" We've succeeded in getting rid of some old interfaces in the kernel, but it has usually been for some *really* esoteric stuff that nobody does by hand. And even then it has generally been an uphill battle, and in most cases we've ended up having the rule that new capabilities absolutely *have* to be a superset of the old, and we continue to support the old model using the new code. It's entirely possible that we might be able to cut down on the WEXT support a tiny bit by slowly removing some parts of it that nobody uses and depends on, but the whole "let's just make it a non-option" was clearly just a drug-fueled bad fantasy. Linus -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/