Re: [PATCH 1/4] strip: move driver to staging

From: John W. Linville
Date: Tue Oct 27 2009 - 17:16:31 EST


On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 11:39:54AM -0700, david@xxxxxxx wrote:

> while I definantly agree that this driver is unlikly to have many users,
> unless it is known broken (which David Miller has stated that it is, but
> had not been mentioned previously in this thread), how can you know that
> the number of users has dropped below 1?

You are free to disagree, but IMHO these devices are so unlikely to
still be in use that the burden of proof of whether or not the driver
works lies upon a forthcoming user. Further, such a user needs to
be at least willing to test patches and probably needs to be in a
position to analyze most "normal" problems that might materialize.
IOW, such a user needs to be a de facto maintainer.

Blindly holding onto a driver not which not only has no known users
but which is believed to have no users at all merely because we can't
_prove_ it is broken is just a waste of resources.

John
--
John W. Linville Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville@xxxxxxxxxxxxx might be all we have. Be ready.
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/