From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753420AbaJGKpJ (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2014 06:45:09 -0400 Received: from 251.110.2.81.in-addr.arpa ([81.2.110.251]:43601 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752825AbaJGKpF (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2014 06:45:05 -0400 Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2014 11:44:47 +0100 From: One Thousand Gnomes To: Clemens Ladisch Cc: Andreas Mohr , Takashi Iwai , alsa-devel@alsa-project.org, Ondrej Zary , Kernel development list Subject: Re: [alsa-devel] Workable vintage driver support mechanism? (Re: [PATCH v3] ES938 support for ES18xx driver) Message-ID: <20141007114447.35379ef7@alan.etchedpixels.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <5432F060.5060307@ladisch.de> References: <1412027079-15876-1-git-send-email-linux@rainbow-software.org> <201410061555.19007.linux@rainbow-software.org> <20141006184150.GA2465@rhlx01.hs-esslingen.de> <5432F060.5060307@ladisch.de> Organization: Intel Corporation X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.9.3 (GTK+ 2.24.23; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 06 Oct 2014 21:41:20 +0200 Clemens Ladisch wrote: > Andreas Mohr wrote: > > I think I have an idea which might be useful to accept: > > for every piece of sufficiently "vintage" submission, > > people would be tasked with offering (or somehow ensuring) > > a sufficiently closely time-related cleanup in other places. > > The problem that such a new driver imposes is not a one-time reduction > in overall kernel quality, but the ongoing maintenance effort. Vintage is not IMHO a useful test. We have plenty of vintage hardware with active hands-on maintainers which causes no problem, and plenty of modern drivers with basically no maintainer that causes endless problems. I think there is much merit in the Debian approach - if it's not got a maintainer, and nobody is willing to take it on, throw it out. If it's got a maintainer leave it in. Economics will resolve the rest of the problem reasonably efficiently. If someone cares enough about using it then they'll figure out how to keep it maintained. Alan