Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:46:56 -0700 | | From | Greg KH <> | | Subject | Re: removing existing working drivers via staging |
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On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 08:20:12PM +0200, Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz wrote: > On Thursday 15 October 2009 19:49:32 Greg KH wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 07:42:40PM +0200, Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz wrote: > > > On Thursday 15 October 2009 18:47:26 Greg KH wrote: > > > > On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 09:39:51AM -0700, david@lang.hm wrote: > > > > > however, what I think I saw proposed was to move drivers that need to be > > > > > 'cleaned up', to staging and then dropping them if they don't get cleaned. > > > > > > > > What is "proposed" is the following: > > > > > > > > - For drivers currently in the kernel tree, that the subsystem > > > > maintainer, for whatever reason, feels is obsolete / broken / > > > > needs major cleaning / wants to get rid of, can be submitted > > > > to the staging maintainer to be moved to the drivers/staging/ > > > > directory. > > > > > > This is insanity and opens a door for various forms of abuse. > > > > What do you mean by this? What kind of "abuse"? > > Typical situation: > > You have driver for _really_ difficult hardware used by minority of total > users of a given subsystem. Said driver has no major problems except being > f*cking complicated (because of hardware) so it stays in the way of future > changes. > > With the current system people making bigger changes have to comprehend > that difficult stuff [*]. This is a good thing in the long-term since it > results in the better overall system understanding, better knowledge of > "DO's and DON'T's" and better users' experience. > > Now with the proposed scheme it is sufficient to throw said driver into > staging for few weeks and make future changes. Before users even notice > and complain they are screwed already since bringing the driver back is > no longer possible without big effort (+ subsystem is still evolving)..
But a driver in staging still has to be able to build, api changes are not able to be ignored in it.
> This will result in a "new kernel new hardware" world that some distro > people have been silently trying to accomplish and in this brave new world > few key people have way too much advantage over everyone else.
I don't understand what you are referring to here.
How about we take it one proposed (real) situation at a time here? If anyone objects to what is going on, please let me know.
thanks,
greg k-h
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