Return-path: Received: from srv5.dvmed.net ([207.36.208.214]:33226 "EHLO mail.dvmed.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932084AbXGYBkI (ORCPT ); Tue, 24 Jul 2007 21:40:08 -0400 Message-ID: <46A6A9F4.1040603@garzik.org> Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 21:40:04 -0400 From: Jeff Garzik MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Stephen.Clark@seclark.us CC: David Miller , jketreno@linux.intel.com, axjslack@bluebottle.com, linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, ipw3945-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [ipw3945-devel] Request for help... References: <46A6A447.2080903@linux.intel.com> <46A69359.4030201@garzik.org> <46A69998.7020108@seclark.us> <20070724.173529.48529759.davem@davemloft.net> <46A69CA1.5020706@seclark.us> In-Reply-To: <46A69CA1.5020706@seclark.us> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Stephen Clark wrote: > So if someone in "the community" really wanted to help Intel why don't > they take the > code Intel posts to the ipw3945 ml and put it into where ever it is > really supposed to go? > Instead of whining how Intel doesn't do it right. Unscalable. People in the past sometimes asked Linus, "why didn't you go to $foo.com website and download the patches? they work for me!" Same reason: it's unscalable. For each step in the maintainership pyramid of trust, the number of people at that level decreases from the previous step. Patches trickle -up- from sub-maintainers to maintainers to Andrew and finally Linus. Thus, it is unreasonable for a kernel maintainer to poll $N mailing lists, coalesce the opinion, grok the code, make sure the code is at a point where it is OK to push upstream, and then push. That's a one-to-many operation. In contrast, a WORKING example of kernel development is a many-to-one process. Driver maintainers send patches to subsystem maintainers. Subsystem maintainers send patches to higher-level subsystem maintainers. High-level subsystem maintainers send patches to Andrew and Linus. That's scalable. Jeff