linux-kernel.vger.kernel.org archive mirror
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: John Bradford <john@grabjohn.com>
To: john@grabjohn.com, ml@basmevissen.nl
Cc: diegocg@teleline.es, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, rpjday@mindspring.com
Subject: Re: time for some drivers to be removed?
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 12:10:25 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <200307251110.h6PBAPVO000497@81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk> (raw)

> > A CONFIG_KNOWN_BROKEN option is a good thing, in the case where,
> > E.G. a SCSI driver is broken, and will randomly corrupt data, but
> > otherwise compiles and appears to work.  
>
> I agree on that.
>
> Maybe I should make my point more clear. What bothers me is that a lot 
> of (early 2.4) kernel versions could easely be configured non-compiling. 
> Not just for exotic configurations, but also when building for an 
> average PC.
>
> That is very confusing (and anoying) for all kernel builders, as you can 
> not always easely tell if the kernel doesn't compile because of 
> misconfiguration or because of code errors.
>
> I hope that this can be avoided for 2.6.0. "Fixing" device drivers by 
> calling them obsolete, is not the right way. Because drivers that are 
> broken and fixed by nobody might not be obsolete.
>
> So for 2.6.0, I propose to only mark obsolete what is really obsolete. 
> Maybe everything that is broken since 2.2 and nobody complained about 
> it. Then, mark broken what is broken for some time and nobody is 
> (currenly) willing/able to fix.

Hmmm, maybe it's just me, but I think of obsolete as meaning something
that's due to be removed whether it works or not, because it's
functionality is no longer required.  I thought we had
CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL for not sufficiently tested code.

It always used to be that with no CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL tagged code
compiled in, it was very rare to get a compile failiure.  You could
rely on any kernel building, as long as you didn't touch
CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL.

Unfortunately, what seems to have happened is that things that really
should be tagged with CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL, are so desired by a lot of
users that they are being moved out of the experimental phase too
soon.

John.

             reply	other threads:[~2003-07-25 10:45 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 46+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2003-07-25 11:10 John Bradford [this message]
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2003-08-14  5:34 time for some drivers to be removed? John Bradford
2003-08-13 20:55 John Bradford
2003-08-13 20:50 ` Adrian Bunk
2003-08-13 20:55 ` Bill Davidsen
2003-08-05 12:42 Mikael Pettersson
2003-08-05 13:03 ` Adrian Bunk
2003-08-05 13:35   ` Mikael Pettersson
2003-08-05 13:48     ` Adrian Bunk
2003-08-05 14:01       ` Mikael Pettersson
2003-08-06 10:06         ` Claus-Justus Heine
2003-08-09 19:40           ` Adrian Bunk
2003-08-05 16:35 ` Alan Cox
2003-08-05 18:47   ` Leopold Gouverneur
2003-07-28  7:12 linux
2003-07-27 16:22 John Bradford
2003-07-24 18:29 John Bradford
2003-07-24 18:31 ` Robert P. J. Day
2003-07-24 19:31   ` Eli Carter
2003-07-25 10:48 ` Bas Mevissen
2003-07-24 14:43 John Bradford
2003-07-24 19:24 ` Brian Jackson
2003-07-24 12:20 Robert P. J. Day
2003-07-24 14:58 ` Alan Cox
2003-07-24 15:34   ` Bas Mevissen
2003-07-24 17:32     ` Diego Calleja García
2003-07-24 17:50       ` Robert P. J. Day
2003-07-24 19:16         ` Diego Calleja García
2003-07-24 19:43           ` Robert P. J. Day
2003-07-24 18:02       ` Samuel Flory
2003-07-24 19:07     ` Alan Cox
2003-07-25 10:48       ` Bas Mevissen
2003-07-27 15:31 ` Adrian Bunk
2003-07-27 15:59   ` David D. Hagood
2003-07-27 16:18     ` Adrian Bunk
2003-07-27 16:40     ` Alan Cox
2003-07-27 17:00       ` Adrian Bunk
2003-07-27 18:45       ` David D. Hagood
2003-07-27 20:40         ` Alan Cox
2003-07-27 20:56           ` Adrian Bunk
2003-07-27 20:56             ` Alan Cox
2003-07-28  2:23               ` Herbert Pötzl
2003-07-29 19:33               ` Adrian Bunk
2003-08-13 20:16                 ` Bill Davidsen
2003-08-09 18:04   ` David Woodhouse
2003-08-09 19:36     ` Adrian Bunk

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=200307251110.h6PBAPVO000497@81-2-122-30.bradfords.org.uk \
    --to=john@grabjohn.com \
    --cc=diegocg@teleline.es \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=ml@basmevissen.nl \
    --cc=rpjday@mindspring.com \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).