Re: [Announce] BKL shifting into drivers and filesystems - beware

From: Richard Gooch (rgooch@ras.ucalgary.ca)
Date: Thu Jul 13 2000 - 16:08:35 EST


Linus Torvalds writes:
>
>
> On Thu, 13 Jul 2000, Richard Gooch wrote:
> > >
> > > (b) means that we'll have these subtle incomptibilities between the
> > > release kernel and the development kernel, and backporting of fixes
> > > etc suddenly becomes much harder.
> >
> > But at some point you need to cut a new kernel version and live with
> > it.
>
> Yes.
>
> The thing I hate, though, is code like
>
> #if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= VERSION(2,5,10)
> lock_kernel();
> #endif
>
> in drivers. _Particularly_ in drivers. We'll end up living with
> 2.4.x for two years or more, judging by past performance, and we'll
> have especially driver writers that concentrate on the 2.4.x stuff
> for a long time.

Perhaps the solution is to have shorter development cycles. Say 6
months before feature freeze, then a planned 3 month shakedown
(extended only if there are reliability problems). Part of the problem
is that so many new things get piled into each development series. Cut
back on the number of significant things per cycle (say just one or
two).

> Having driver interface inconsistencies like that is nasty, and the
> ones we _know_ that we'll have should be minimized.

Yeah, but things will always be changing, so we have to live with
it. Otherwise we can end up waiting for the perfect kernel before it
gets released. Next we'll be investing in an organ.

                                Regards,

                                        Richard....
Permanent: rgooch@atnf.csiro.au
Current: rgooch@ras.ucalgary.ca

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