Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932200AbVIEE0z (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:26:55 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932202AbVIEE0z (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:26:55 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:41427 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932200AbVIEE0y (ORCPT ); Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:26:54 -0400 Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:26:41 -0400 From: Dave Jones To: Alex Davis Cc: Sean , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: RFC: i386: kill !4KSTACKS Message-ID: <20050905042641.GD4715@redhat.com> Mail-Followup-To: Dave Jones , Alex Davis , Sean , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <36918.10.10.10.10.1125889201.squirrel@linux1> <20050905034158.97152.qmail@web50213.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20050905034158.97152.qmail@web50213.mail.yahoo.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1792 Lines: 42 On Sun, Sep 04, 2005 at 08:41:58PM -0700, Alex Davis wrote: > It will never be 'appropriate' if the system doesn't somehow work on Joe's > hardware. We currently have something that works. "works". As someone who gets to read a lot of bug reports from end-users, this thing is far from perfect judging by the number of tainted oopses I've seen, and not all of them look like stack size issues. The fact is these situations are undebuggable. Where does that leave users ? > Please explain how Linux can be an 'important force' if people can't > use it? Wireless networking is very important to people. There are plenty of cards available, which work just fine with free drivers. > Um, ever hear of 'compromise'?? All I'm saying is let people use what > currently works until we can get an open-source solution. Ndiswrapper's > existence is not stopping you (or anyone else) from pestering manufacturers > for spec's and writing drivers. I look at ndiswrapper as a stop-gap solution. A lot of users look at it as nirvana. I've seen users report bugs against ancient kernels, that are extremely likely to be fixed in later kernels, yet they're unwilling to move to a newer kernel due to them being tied to a driver that only works on an older kernel, despite the fact that there are known security and data corruption issues with the older kernels. Helping the cause of binary (or part binary) solutions doesn't solve anything. It brings nothing but unsolvable problems, and upset users when their problems can't get fixed. Dave - 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/