Message-ID: <3F210AF5.5000909@basmevissen.nl>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 12:48:21 +0200
From: Bas Mevissen <ml@basmevissen.nl>
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To: John Bradford <john@grabjohn.com>
Cc: diegocg@teleline.es, rpjday@mindspring.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: time for some drivers to be removed?
References: <200307241829.h6OITjR3000582@81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk>
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John Bradford wrote:
> A CONFIG_KNOWN_BROKEN option is a good thing, in the case where,
> E.G. a SCSI driver is broken, and will randomly corrupt data, but
> otherwise compiles and appears to work.  

I agree on that.

Maybe I should make my point more clear. What bothers me is that a lot 
of (early 2.4) kernel versions could easely be configured non-compiling. 
Not just for exotic configurations, but also when building for an 
average PC.

That is very confusing (and anoying) for all kernel builders, as you can 
not always easely tell if the kernel doesn't compile because of 
misconfiguration or because of code errors.

I hope that this can be avoided for 2.6.0. "Fixing" device drivers by 
calling them obsolete, is not the right way. Because drivers that are 
broken and fixed by nobody might not be obsolete.

So for 2.6.0, I propose to only mark obsolete what is really obsolete. 
Maybe everything that is broken since 2.2 and nobody complained about 
it. Then, mark broken what is broken for some time and nobody is 
(currenly) willing/able to fix.

Bas.


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