Messages in this thread |  | | From | "Kevin Buettner" <> | Date | Thu, 4 Jul 1996 11:02:27 -0700 | Subject | Re: Linux-2.0.1 |
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On Jul 4, 10:50am, Andrew E. Mileski wrote:
> > > Developers: I will NOT accept large patches any more. If you find bugs, > > > go for the one-liner obvious bugfix rather than a rewrite. Due to me > > > being abroad I couldn't work as closely with people on 2.0.1 patches as I > > > need to, but I'm back, and this kind of mega-patch will NOT happen again.. > > > > Does this include drivers as we will need to add a fairly large driver > > chunk because the Metricom firmware has changed. That should all be a > > single clean driver not affecting other files. > > Personally, I don't have a problem with 1 big patch = a new version. > Does anybody else? Does Mr. Torvalds?
Large patches increase the risk that something will break (as opposed to getting fixed) which is a very bad thing for a non-development (i.e. stable) series of kernels. This is particularly true when some bit of functionality is rewritten (to be cleaner, more efficient, whatever) when a simpler but less elegant bug fix would have sufficed. I think this is reason for Linus' objections to large patches.
When the 2.1 development series starts up, I suspect that Linus will be willing to accept large _focused_ patches.
> I say this, because PnP support will likely be 1 patch, because > it touches just about everything.
Umm, yeah. I'm not knocking PnP or your work, but I suspect that when it's integrated, there'll be much breakage for several kernel versions. I don't personally have a problem with this just so long as it happens in 2.1 instead of 2.0.
Kevin
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