Re: [PATCH] char: applicom: remove low-quality, unused driver

[David Woodhouse]

On Sat, 2026-05-02 at 20:58 -0700, Ethan Nelson-Moore wrote:
> The applicom driver supports PCI Profibus cards from Applicom, later
> acquired by Molex. It has severe coding style issues and has attracted
> a number of bug and security fixes over the years, despite the fact
> that no one appears to be using it. It was broken from at least the
> beginning of Git history (Linux 2.6.12-rc2 in April 2005) until October
> 2008, when a fatal bug was fixed in commit bc20589bf1c6 ("applicom.c:
> fix apparently-broken code in do_ac_read()"). In the commit message,
> the author commented that no one they knew was able to test the change.
> Since then, there have been no commits that indicate the driver is
> being used. Later PCI and PCI-Express Applicom Profibus cards only
> officially support Windows [1], and even the PCI-Express cards have
> been discontinued [2]. Given all these factors, remove the driver to
> reduce future maintenance workload.
> 
> [1] https://www.sarcitalia.it/file_upload/prodotti//PCIE1500S7_PFB_987651-3769_0876250001505823933.pdf
> [2] https://us.rs-online.com/product/molex-woodhead-brad/112011-5026/70631928/
> 
> Signed-off-by: Ethan Nelson-Moore <enelsonmoore@xxxxxxxxx>

Acked-by: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

I'm not aware of anyone using these cards in the 21st century.

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