Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Thu, 31 Jan 2002 07:56:47 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Thu, 31 Jan 2002 07:56:38 -0500 Received: from [195.63.194.11] ([195.63.194.11]:48395 "EHLO mail.stock-world.de") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Thu, 31 Jan 2002 07:56:26 -0500 Message-ID: <3C593EEC.3000907@evision-ventures.com> Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 13:56:12 +0100 From: Martin Dalecki User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.7) Gecko/20011226 X-Accept-Language: en-us, pl MIME-Version: 1.0 To: mingo@elte.hu CC: David Weinehall , Alan Cox , Linus Torvalds , Alexander Viro , Daniel Phillips , Rob Landley , linux-kernel Subject: Re: A modest proposal -- We need a patch penguin In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Ingo Molnar wrote: >On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, David Weinehall wrote: > >>On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 03:17:52PM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote: >> >>>'old' architectures do not hinder development - they are separate, and >>>they have to update their stuff. (and i think the m68k port is used by >>>many other people and not CS archeologists.) Old drivers are not a true >>>problem either - if they dont compile that's the problem of the >>>maintainer. Occasionally old drivers get zapped (mainly when there is a >>>new replacement driver). >>> >>To testify that even really old hardware is used, I recently received >>a patch for 2.0.xx to add autodetection for wd1002s-wx2 in the >>xd.c-driver. Not particularly recent hardware, but the person who sent >>the patch uses it. Why deny him usage of his hardware when it doesn't >>intrude upon the rest of the codebase? >> > >exactly. Cruft hanging around does hurt in the 'generic' kernel. There is >'leaf' code where it hurts much less. Sure, we'd like to have clean code >everywhere, and a driver with a clean and recent codebase will get more >attention from the architecture point of view, but to the user, an >outdated but working driver is better than no driver at all. > It's an incredibble bandwidth waste for 99.99% of people downolading 2.5.xx and it *is* making architectural changes in the kernel harder, becouse the modularisatoin of the kernel isn't nearly as perfect as you try to disguise it here. Please just have a look at the consequences of the kdev_t changes, which where necessary since already about 8 years. And then my these is somehow tautological if it doesn't apply now, it will apply in about 4 years. At some point in time there is the need to let some things go - the problem is more fundamental. - 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/