Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1762185AbYBABjK (ORCPT ); Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:39:10 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753682AbYBABiz (ORCPT ); Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:38:55 -0500 Received: from fg-out-1718.google.com ([72.14.220.155]:16092 "EHLO fg-out-1718.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753012AbYBABix (ORCPT ); Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:38:53 -0500 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=subject:from:to:cc:content-type:date:message-id:mime-version:x-mailer:content-transfer-encoding; b=jMDyTbGt5fZ1lHla11A59UFW9gLYD0I267n9Vp2D9Mqv9f/wDCSCWAfXV30OysTE1c43MuUWqJYImJHh7G0MIhgmnmbqbBHaQ/zFnKLzYjd58WGM+0iVc9gTh4t08F/kWJ9Xp8y4Tqua77eHk+z8LFdlMJqK46KqCwpjT5iXBUQ= Subject: Feature Removals for 2.6.25 From: Harvey Harrison To: Andrew Morton Cc: David Miller , Jiri Slaby , Pavel Machek , Christoph Hellwig , Dominik Brodowski , Andi Kleen , Adrian Bunk , Arjan van de Ven , Greg Kroah-Hartman , Nick Piggin , Stephen Hemminger , LKML , Randy Dunlap , Len Brown Content-Type: text/plain Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:38:42 -0800 Message-Id: <1201829922.23523.68.camel@brick> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.12.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 6743 Lines: 187 The following are entries in feature-removal-schedule.txt that have come due. Please change the subject when replying to specific items. Where I've gotten responses from the named person in the file, I've included their comment. --------------------------- What: MXSER When: December 2007 Why: Old mxser driver is obsoleted by the mxser_new. Give it some time yet and remove it. Who: Jiri Slaby Jiri says probably not for 2.6.25, likely 2.6.26 Patch in mm: http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/mmotm/broken-out/char-mxser-remove-it.patch --------------------------- Ping? What: dev->power.power_state When: July 2007 Why: Broken design for runtime control over driver power states, confusing driver-internal runtime power management with: mechanisms to support system-wide sleep state transitions; event codes that distinguish different phases of swsusp "sleep" transitions; and userspace policy inputs. This framework was never widely used, and most attempts to use it were broken. Drivers should instead be exposing domain-specific interfaces either to kernel or to userspace. Who: Pavel Machek --------------------------- What: old NCR53C9x driver When: October 2007 Why: Replaced by the much better esp_scsi driver. Actual low-level driver can be ported over almost trivially. Who: David Miller Christoph Hellwig DaveM: Likely one more release with this, perhaps delete 2.6.26 --------------------------- Ping? What: PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl]) When: November 2005 Files: drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c Why: With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new pcmciautils package available at http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/ Who: Dominik Brodowski --------------------------- What: a.out interpreter support for ELF executables When: 2.6.25 Files: fs/binfmt_elf.c Why: Using a.out interpreters for ELF executables was a feature for transition from a.out to ELF. But now it is unlikely to be still needed anymore and removing it would simplify the hairy ELF loader code. Who: Andi Kleen Patch in mm. --------------------------- Ping? What: remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread) When: August 2006 Files: arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c Check: kernel_thread Why: kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail. Drivers should use the API instead which shields them from implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that prevents bugs and code duplication Who: Christoph Hellwig --------------------------- What: CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING When: June 2006 Why: Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january 2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not, the option should just go away entirely. Who: Arjan van de Ven Patch submitted to Arjan, maybe 2.6.25? --------------------------- Ping? What: eepro100 network driver When: January 2007 Why: replaced by the e100 driver Who: Adrian Bunk --------------------------- Ping? Possibly remove this from feature-removal-schedule? What: Unused EXPORT_SYMBOL/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL exports (temporary transition config option provided until then) The transition config option will also be removed at the same time. When: before 2.6.19 Why: Unused symbols are both increasing the size of the kernel binary and are often a sign of "wrong API" Who: Arjan van de Ven --------------------------- Ping? What: USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL When: February 2008 Files: include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c Why: The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs that operate as fast as the USB bus allows. Because of this, the USB subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to register with it, after this grace period is over. If anyone needs any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the userspace filesystems, please contact the linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers there will be glad to help you out. Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman --------------------------- Ping? What: vm_ops.nopage When: Soon, provided in-kernel callers have been converted Why: This interface is replaced by vm_ops.fault, but it has been around forever, is used by a lot of drivers, and doesn't cost much to maintain. Who: Nick Piggin --------------------------- Should this be removed? What: /proc/acpi/button When: August 2007 Why: /proc/acpi/button has been replaced by events to the input layer since 2.6.20. Who: Len Brown LenB: we try to remove them, but every time we do, people scream. --------------------------- Should this be removed? What: /proc/acpi/event When: February 2008 Why: /proc/acpi/event has been replaced by events via the input layer and netlink since 2.6.23. Who: Len Brown LenB: we try to remove them, but every time we do, people scream. --------------------------- What: 'time' kernel boot parameter When: January 2008 Why: replaced by 'printk.time=' so that printk timestamps can be enabled or disabled as needed Who: Randy Dunlap RDunlap: Adrian Bunk sent a patch for it. I acked it. Andrew merged it into -mm according to a commits email. --------------------------- Ping, although Adrian is pretty good about this. What: drivers depending on OSS_OBSOLETE When: options in 2.6.23, code in 2.6.25 Why: obsolete OSS drivers Who: Adrian Bunk --------------------------- Ping? What: sk98lin network driver When: Feburary 2008 Why: In kernel tree version of driver is unmaintained. Sk98lin driver replaced by the skge driver. Who: Stephen Hemminger Cheers, Harve -- 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/