Re: [ANNOUNCE] block device interfaces changes

From: david parsons (orc@pell.portland.or.us)
Date: Sun Jan 09 2000 - 00:58:27 EST


In article <linux.kernel.Pine.LNX.4.10.10001090252500.584-100000@mirkwood.dummy.home>,
Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org> wrote:
>On Sun, 9 Jan 2000, Richard B. Johnson wrote:
>
>> The industrial use of Linux is not at the desktop.
>
>Industrial use of Linux usually doesn't involve the kernels
>which are marked as `development', ie. where the `middle'
>version number is odd and where major things are expected
>to change.

    Except, of course, that when the changes go in they are
    never backed out so the interfaces remain stable for
    the production kernels. That's the *really* annoying
    thing about this line of argument; when else should
    someone complain that an interface has been turned into
    gravel? If you wait until the development tree has
    become a production tree, enough code will be modified
    to work with the New! And! Improved! interfaces that
    your complaints (cf: old-style fcntl locking) will be
    dismissed sight unseen by the Core Team.

>People venturing out on that terrain can know what they're
>heading into (see http://kt.linuxcare.com/)

    The big support providers are the ones who benefit from
    interface churning. It's the small shops that get bitten
    in the ass because they don't have enough money to buy
    programmers or enough time to do the patches.

                  ____
    david parsons \bi/ If you can't tell, I hate that argument.
                   \/

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