Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 11 Mar 2002 19:16:50 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 11 Mar 2002 19:16:40 -0500 Received: from tmr-02.dsl.thebiz.net ([216.238.38.204]:7433 "EHLO gatekeeper.tmr.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 11 Mar 2002 19:16:28 -0500 Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 19:14:39 -0500 (EST) From: Bill Davidsen To: Linus Torvalds cc: LKML Subject: Re: [patch] My AMD IDE driver, v2.7 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 11 Mar 2002, Linus Torvalds wrote: > Note that I've actually tried to read all patches, and right now they are > all in my tree (of course, the "all" is the Linus kind of "all", which > only includes the ones I actually _noticed_. > > That includes your AMD IDE driver change _and_ the oh-so-much-discussed > patches by Martin (which in turn included Pavel's change, which - together > with his changelog entry - seems to be the one that triggered the "lively > discussions"). I think you might want to offer an opinion (or edict, mandate, whatever) WRT taskfile. While I think that some protective editing of commands is desirable, useful, etc, I'm damn sure that some form of raw access is required long term to allow diagmostics. I wouldn't argue if that interface was required for low level format and other really drastic operations as well. I think "future new commands" is total FUD, the idea that some new command would come along and be so instantly popular, useful and incompatible that all Linux boxes would require it before the next kernel or driver update is silly at best, and I'm working hard to keep this on a civil plane. Linux moves a hell of a lot faster than Windows, and I can't see anything coming out which requires "instant attention" because it is totally incompatible with existing drivers. Most changes will be only added functionality, like 48 bit addressing, and will be a superset of current drivers. In other words, not everyone will wnat or need the capability, and no one is going to feel that a month or so wait from driver TESTING would cause them to give up computing and become a stripper in a gay bar. In any case, taskfile is here, and unless there is a good reason to drop lightly edited commands, or raw commands, or go to some totally different approach, I wish you would express a clear opinion, at least WRT 2.4, before developers become nasty and stop limiting themselves to accusations of stupidity, incompetence, inreliability and prevarication. -- bill davidsen CTO, TMR Associates, Inc Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979. - 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/