From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752206AbXBKAaJ (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:30:09 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752180AbXBKAaJ (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:30:09 -0500 Received: from ogre.sisk.pl ([217.79.144.158]:35422 "EHLO ogre.sisk.pl" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752206AbXBKAaH (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:30:07 -0500 From: "Rafael J. Wysocki" To: Tilman Schmidt Subject: Re: NAK new drivers without proper power management? Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 01:27:34 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5 Cc: nigel@nigel.suspend2.net, Pavel Machek , Arjan van de Ven , LKML References: <1171058269.1484.64.camel@nigel.suspend2.net> <1171147026.19894.16.camel@nigel.suspend2.net> <45CE5934.3020801@imap.cc> In-Reply-To: <45CE5934.3020801@imap.cc> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200702110127.35631.rjw@sisk.pl> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sunday, 11 February 2007 00:45, Tilman Schmidt wrote: > Am 10.02.2007 23:37 schrieb Nigel Cunningham: > > If your device requires power management, and you know it requires power > > management, why not just implement power management? Doing -ENOSYS > > instead is like saying -ESPAMMEBECAUSEIMLAZY. > > Like it or not, power management is far from trivial, and people > writing device drivers have limited resources. Calling them lazy > does not help that in the least. If you try to put pressure on them > by refusing to merge their work as long as it doesn't provide this > or that functionality, you *may* end up with a few drivers having > that functionality which otherwise wouldn't, but you *will* also > end up with a number of drivers never making it into the kernel > because their authors just have to give up. > > Also, in your argument you neglected a few cases: > - What if my device does not require power management? > - What if I don't know whether my device requires power management? > - What if I know my device would require power management, but don't > know how to implement it? Plus: - What if I'm planning to implement the power managemet, but not just right now? > > Let me put it another way: People keep talking about Linux being ready > > for the desktop. To me at least (but I dare say for lots of other people > > too), being ready for the desktop means that things just work, without > > having to recompile kernels or bug driver authors or wait twelve > > months. > > Exactly. > > > And it means that doing a bare minimum isn't enough. We keep claiming > > that Open Source is better than Proprietary software. If we accept > > half-pie jobs of implementing support for anything - driver power > > management support or hibernation support or whatever - as 'good > > enough', we're undercutting that argument. Linux's power management > > support should - as far as we're able - be at least as good as that > > other operating system's and preferably way, way better. > > > > -ENOSYS is just not acceptable. > > Your argument falls down the moment you consider the alternative: > not merging the driver means that the device won't work at all. > (Given that out-of-tree drivers are actively discouraged, to put > it mildly.) That's arguably farther from "desktop readiness" than > a device not supporting power management. Agreed. Greetings, Rafael