Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264778AbTE1Pvk (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 May 2003 11:51:40 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264780AbTE1Pvk (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 May 2003 11:51:40 -0400 Received: from tmr-02.dsl.thebiz.net ([216.238.38.204]:7428 "EHLO gatekeeper.tmr.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264778AbTE1Pvi (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 May 2003 11:51:38 -0400 Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 11:58:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Bill Davidsen To: Linus Torvalds cc: Ricky Beam , Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: Linux 2.5.70 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1726 Lines: 43 On Tue, 27 May 2003, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > On Tue, 27 May 2003, Ricky Beam wrote: > > > > Count up the number of drivers that haven't been updated to the current > > PCI, hotplug, and modules interfaces. > > Tough. If people don't use them, they don't get supported. It's that easy. Just the other day you posted strong opposition to breaking existing binaries, how does that map with breaking existing hardware? > > The thing is, these things won't change before 2.6 (or at least a > pre-2.6). When 2.6.0 comes out, and somebody notices that they haven't > bothered to try the 2.5.x series, _then_ maybe some of those odd-ball > drivers get fixed. > > Or not. Some of them may be literally due for retirement, with users just > running an old kernel on old hardware. > > Btw, this is nothing new. It has _always_ been the case that a lot of > people didn't use the latest stable kernel until it was released, and then > they complained because the drivers they used weren't up to spec. > > Linus That's clearly true, but part of the reason is that some drivers just don't compile, so people assume it's a work in progress. And when problems are reported they sometimes don't get fixed even when there is a maintainer listed for a driver. Hopefully vendors will pick up the slack for things like that and the power management issues. -- bill davidsen CTO, TMR Associates, Inc Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979. - 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/