Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 31 Jan 2002 13:56:12 +0100 | From | Martin Dalecki <> | Subject | Re: A modest proposal -- We need a patch penguin |
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Ingo Molnar wrote:
>On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, David Weinehall wrote: > >>On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 03:17:52PM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote: >> >>>'old' architectures do not hinder development - they are separate, and >>>they have to update their stuff. (and i think the m68k port is used by >>>many other people and not CS archeologists.) Old drivers are not a true >>>problem either - if they dont compile that's the problem of the >>>maintainer. Occasionally old drivers get zapped (mainly when there is a >>>new replacement driver). >>> >>To testify that even really old hardware is used, I recently received >>a patch for 2.0.xx to add autodetection for wd1002s-wx2 in the >>xd.c-driver. Not particularly recent hardware, but the person who sent >>the patch uses it. Why deny him usage of his hardware when it doesn't >>intrude upon the rest of the codebase? >> > >exactly. Cruft hanging around does hurt in the 'generic' kernel. There is >'leaf' code where it hurts much less. Sure, we'd like to have clean code >everywhere, and a driver with a clean and recent codebase will get more >attention from the architecture point of view, but to the user, an >outdated but working driver is better than no driver at all. > It's an incredibble bandwidth waste for 99.99% of people downolading 2.5.xx and it *is* making architectural changes in the kernel harder, becouse the modularisatoin of the kernel isn't nearly as perfect as you try to disguise it here. Please just have a look at the consequences of the kdev_t changes, which where necessary since already about 8 years. And then my these is somehow tautological if it doesn't apply now, it will apply in about 4 years. At some point in time there is the need to let some things go - the problem is more fundamental.
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