Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 16:41:17 -0800
From: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
To: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Cc: Theodore Tso <tytso@mit.edu>, Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>,
	Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org,
	yi.zhu@intel.com, jketreno@linux.intel.com,
	linux-wireless <linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org>, akpm@osdl.org
Subject: Re: [2.6.21 patch] unconditionally enable SYSFS_DEPRECATED
Message-ID: <20070306004117.GB12566@kroah.com>
References: <20070304220857.GH23311@waste.org> <1173051564.6131.13.camel@johannes.berg> <20070305002550.GI23311@waste.org> <20070305011729.GB7681@kroah.com> <20070305125950.GC26781@thunk.org> <20070305185813.GA31465@kroah.com> <20070305234052.GR3441@stusta.de> <20070306000722.GA11436@kroah.com> <20070306003541.GT3441@stusta.de>
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In-Reply-To: <20070306003541.GT3441@stusta.de>
Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org

On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 01:35:41AM +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 04:07:22PM -0800, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 12:40:52AM +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > > On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 10:58:13AM -0800, Greg KH wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Ok, how about the following patch.  Is it acceptable to everyone?
> > > > 
> > > > thanks,
> > > > 
> > > > greg k-h
> > > > 
> > > > ---
> > > >  init/Kconfig |   13 +++++++++++--
> > > >  1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> > > > 
> > > > --- gregkh-2.6.orig/init/Kconfig
> > > > +++ gregkh-2.6/init/Kconfig
> > > > @@ -290,8 +290,17 @@ config SYSFS_DEPRECATED
> > > >  	  that belong to a class, back into the /sys/class heirachy, in
> > > >  	  order to support older versions of udev.
> > > >  
> > > > -	  If you are using a distro that was released in 2006 or later,
> > > > -	  it should be safe to say N here.
> > > > +	  If you are using an OpenSuSE, Gentoo, Ubuntu, or Fedora
> > > > +	  release from 2007 or later, it should be safe to say N here.
> > > > +
> > > > +	  If you are using Debian or other distros that are slow to
> > > > +	  update HAL, please say Y here.
> > > >...
> > > 
> > > The sane solution seems to be to enable SYSFS_DEPRECATED unconditionally 
> > > for all users, and schedule it's removal for mid-2008 (or later).
> > > 
> > > 12 months after the first _release_ of a HAL that can live without seems 
> > > to be the first time when we can consider getting rid of it, since all 
> > > distributions with at least one release a year should ship it by then.
> > > 
> > > Currently, SYSFS_DEPRECATED is only a trap for users.
> > 
> > Huh?
> > 
> > No, again, I've been using this just fine for about 6 months now.
> > 
> > And what about all of the servers not using HAL/NetworkManager?
> 
> On a server, it shouldn't harm.

But if they wanted that option enabled?

> > And what about all of the embedded systems not using either?
> 
> If it was much code, I would have sent a patch that allowed disabling it 
> if EMBEDDED=y.

It's not a code size issue.  In fact, if the option is enabled, like you
have done, it builds more code into the kernel than before.

> > So to not allow this to be turned off by people who might want to (we
> > want this for OpenSuSE 10.3, and Fedora 7 also will want this, as will
> > other distros released this year), is pretty heavy-handed.
> > 
> > It also will work in OpenSuSE 10.2 which is already released, and I
> > think Fedora 6, but I've only limited experience with these.
> > 
> > Oh, and Gentoo works just fine, and has been for the past 6 months.
> 
> For most people, it simply doesn't matter whether SYSFS_DEPRECATED is 
> on or off.

Exactly.

> But accidentally disabling SYSFS_DEPRECATED has proven to be a trap 
> people sometimes fall into - and tracking them down to 
> SYSFS_DEPRECATED=n sometimes takes some time.

So how do I put up the warning flag any larger than I have?

I do not want this always enabled, that option is not acceptable to me,
or to the zillions of people who are running a distro that this option
works just fine on (see above list...)

thanks,

greg k-h