Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:38:09 -0700 (PDT) | From | david@lang ... | Subject | Re: removing existing working drivers via staging |
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On Thu, 15 Oct 2009, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> * david@lang.hm <david@lang.hm> wrote: > >>> But a driver in staging still has to be able to build, api changes >>> are not able to be ignored in it. >> >> a driver in staging will be able to build, but a driver that was >> removed after 6-9 months that a user discovered the removal of a year >> later when they upgraded to a new distro release (say a normal ubuntu >> release after staying on the old one for the 18 month support period) >> is likely to need significant work to catch up with kernel changes in >> the meanwhile. > > Where do you get the 6-9 months from? Greg said he'll wait 3 kernel > releases. Here's the timeline of that:
that was the timeframe listed in the prior discussion, 3 kernel releases * 2-3 months/release works out to this
> - release x > - [A] driver moves into drivers/staging/ in the staging tree > - release x+1 > - drivers/staging/ change gets merged in the x+2 merge window > - release x+2 - first kernel with the driver in staging > - release x+3 > - release x+4 > - driver gets removed in the staging tree > - release x+5 - 3 kernel releases passed - now it's removed > - removal propagates upstream in the x+6 merge window > - [B] release x+6
I would have seen this as
release x driver moves into staging release x+1 release x+2 release x+3 driver is removed release x+4 no longer has the driver
> from the decision to move it into staging there's 4 kernel releases > during which the information is known, and 3 full kernel releases with > the driver is actually moved, and even in the 4th cycle there's still 3 > months to undo the removal if there's objections (i.e. it's a > regression). > > This means the timeline is 4*3 = 12 months _at minimum_. In practice it > will be more than a year - up to 1.5 years. Well within most distros ~3 > months upstream kernel update schedule.
yes, this is well past the distro update cycle for new releases, but not within the user update cycle. there are a LOT of people who don't upgrade every 6 months. every distro provides support for at least 12 months, if not more. and even then there are a lot of people who drop out of their distro support before they upgrade.
it's these users who will discover the missing driver and care about it, not the distros.
personally, I try to do a kernel update every year (if security concerns in a feature that I have compiled in don't force me to upgrade sooner) sometimes with a distro upgrade, sometimes not.
David Lang
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