I suggest to make a linux/patches/ directory where bigger 3rd party
patches can be stored. I think of things like devfs (as long as it isn't
part of the official kernel - bu I hope it will be merged soon), my
boot logo selection patch and other improvments which are not included
until now (becouse linus didn't have anouth time or just doesn't like
the patch but it still may be usefull for some people).
My idea is that we could have in this directory to files per patch:
<patchname>.patch which is the actual patch and
<patchname>.txt which conatins a description and a header with well
defined entries (like kernel version it was written
for and applies clean).
This archive could be maintained by someone else than linus and the newest
version could be downloaded from some website - but it should be part of
the kernel tarball or at least should be distributed together with the
linux kernel (like linux-2.1.124.tar.bz2 and patches-2.1.124.bz2) from
kernel.org. So much more people can test this kernel patches and notice
that they exists (I'm pretty sure that much more people are useing 2.1.*
kernels than people reading this list and knowing that there is
something like devfs - this is much more extreme for "stable" kernels
like 2.0.*).
One idea behind this is to have somethink like an "official patch
archive". I've had a look at www.linuxhq.com - but didn't found
the intressting patches I hear often here and than about.
IMHO there are three cathegories of patches:
1.) Bugfixes
2.) Improvements (like support for up to 1.000.000 processes)
3.) New features (like support for a new filesystem or network card)
This patch-archive is thouth for 2. and 3. patches. For patches of the
cat. 3 it can be something like "really experimental" or just becouse it's
not possible to disable the whole patch useing an configuration option
(like it is with devfs). Patches of the cat. 2 are probably only usefull
for a little number of users - but they really need it and if we
distribute the patch together with the kernel we tell everyone that it is
possible to do this (imho this is an importand point).
Tell me if you like the idea or not and why.
- clifford
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Clifford Wolf (CEO and CTO)
The ROCK Projects Workgoup IRC: IRCnet / clifford
http://www.rock-projects.com/ http://www.clifford.at/
e-mail: c.wolf@rock-projects.com email: god@clifford.at
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