Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:44:05 +1030 | From | David Newall <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH for mm] Remove iBCS support |
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Adrian Bunk wrote: > On Fri, Jan 25, 2008 at 04:25:24AM +1030, David Newall wrote: > >> The performance benefit is trivial, and the improvement to >> maintainability is even less. >> > > The effects become bigger when you realize that there are many such > places in the kernel. > > And the benefit of keeping it is zero. >
The benefit is not zero. Repeating myself: While the code is there, it encourages either removal or repair. If the option to remove is taken off the table then it will eventually be repaired.
> What you are doing is not contributing but wasting other people's time. > You want to remove the code so you attack me. Sadly for you, your personal taste is irrelevant to the benefit that I bring. What kind of a person considers robust debate to be a waste of time? A bit pathetic, sadly.
> The only thing you could ever achieve with this kind of "contribution" > is to end up in some killfiles. >
I'm comfortable with that. I'm also comfortable that consensus might go against me. This childish threat of kill-files is not going to stop me.
>>>> At one stage iBCS2 support DID work. Now it doesn't. Now there's an >>>> argument that the remaining infrastructure should be removed. This is >>>> the wrong direction to take. >>>> >>>> >>> When did iBCS2 support work in a plain ftp.kernel.org kernel? >>> >>> >> I don't know when. Are you disputing that it ever did? I think it's a >> given that once it worked. >> > > AFAIK the kernel never shipped with iBCS2 support. >
Are you claiming that it never did? Is that even important? Clearly there was support for it in the mainline kernel. Anecdotally the support worked.
... > The point is that ideas do not turn themselves into code. > This discussion is about removing code. That's a bit like tearing down the pergola because the vine has shrivelled. Easy to do, but counter-productive. LIkewise, removing iBCS2 code would be unproductive. It would achieve no benefit, whilst simultaneously leading Linux in the wrong direction. This is a point you have consistently failed to address.
> And there are far too many people who want to see their great ideas > implemented without implementing it themselves. > This is not about a great idea. It's about a pointless idea. Even allowing what you say to be true, and it probably is, there is nothing wrong with somebody having a great idea and leaving it to others to implement. If the only people allowed to have great ideas were those who could implement them then the world would be a much poorer place. You demonstrate a twisted view of value.
> Talking about a feature without having anyone willing to implement it > simply has no value.
Who said nobody is willing to implement it? We've all recently learned that there is a patch. From there to implementation is much closer than you or I thought last week. So already this discussion has prompted tangible benefit.
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