Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932750AbWAHSoD (ORCPT ); Sun, 8 Jan 2006 13:44:03 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932751AbWAHSoD (ORCPT ); Sun, 8 Jan 2006 13:44:03 -0500 Received: from pentafluge.infradead.org ([213.146.154.40]:6322 "EHLO pentafluge.infradead.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932750AbWAHSoB (ORCPT ); Sun, 8 Jan 2006 13:44:01 -0500 Subject: Re: [PATCH]: How to be a kernel driver maintainer From: Arjan van de Ven To: Ben Collins Cc: Linux Kernel Development , Linus Torvalds In-Reply-To: <1136744870.1043.4.camel@grayson> References: <1136736455.24378.3.camel@grayson> <1136737997.2955.10.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <1136744870.1043.4.camel@grayson> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 19:43:58 +0100 Message-Id: <1136745838.2955.17.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.2.3 (2.2.3-2.fc4) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -2.8 (--) X-Spam-Report: SpamAssassin version 3.0.4 on pentafluge.infradead.org summary: Content analysis details: (-2.8 points, 5.0 required) pts rule name description ---- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- -2.8 ALL_TRUSTED Did not pass through any untrusted hosts X-SRS-Rewrite: SMTP reverse-path rewritten from by pentafluge.infradead.org See http://www.infradead.org/rpr.html Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1343 Lines: 32 > But this isn't at al true. Almost all subsystems maintain the primary > tree outside of the kernel, with the kernel being the primary _stable_ > tree. USB, Netdev, patches yes. but usually only small stuff > Alsa, etc. All changes go someplace else before being > pushed to the primary kernel tree. 99% of the time, patches are going > somewhere else before going into the main kernel. that's different... that's a patch queue. That's not the same as being the prime repository. > So the above > paragraphs is really misleading. I guess neither is good then. I certainly would absolutely not want to encourage developers to have a main "real driver" outside the kernel source. Linus calls that "the cvs mentality" and time after time that has proven to be really bad. You mention alsa, and to some degree alsa is suffering from this ;( (this is different from net/usb/scsi where changes are queued but merged regularly and near immediately in case of bugfixes, unlike things like alsa and firewire where basically the only choice is "all or nothing" where "all" is bugfixes and new bugs) - 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/