FORT David <epopo@onetelnet.fr> said:
> Horst von Brand wrote:
[...]
> > Dream on, as it won't happen. Just think of either:
> >
> > - All pieces _have_ to be the same version: What is the use then? Just ship
> > them together and be done. Splitting it up is extra work, plus the
> > complaints that core-2.8.3 now doesn't work with ia32-2.6.9 and foo, bar,
> > baz drivers of assorted other versions.
> > - You can mix and match: Great! Just who will do the testing and documentatio
> n
> > of what works with what?
> >
> > Major pain and much extra work to developers (remember, Linux' objective is
> > being fun to hack on, the "World domination. Fast." thing is just FUD ;)
> > for minor convenience to some users and major pain to all the rest.
> Isn't it what API have been made for?
Yes. But the API isn't set in stone, as that would slow down
development. Plus you need the machinery to build whatever pieces are
extant and ignore the rest, you have to carve up the whole into separate
pieces, ... This is a *lot* of work for very minimal gain and many future
problems.
> I think nobody would complain if
> "being fun to hack on(TM)" could also be "Fast developped(TM)".
I don't see how chopping up the kernel will speed up development. Quite to
the contrary, any change has to be propagated to all pieces, and that will
take more time, and create a nightmare of "drivers bar-0.37.2 to 0.39.6 go
with kernel-core 2.9.45 to 2.9.76, but work only with foo-3.65.x".
Syncronization issues arise by the distributed development, which are now
trivially solved by "this is _the_ official version of _all_ there is".
> Anyway
> the developpement of the kernel is already modular, as teams are working
> quite independantly, and send theirs diff when a release is about to
> come.
*Very* bad practice, I may add.
> I take a simple example: i got an USB webcam which stopped working
> at test9-pre2, I'd like to have a 2.4.0test10-pre3 kernel but with the
> last working USB.
So what? 2.4.0-test is experimental, you can't assume stuff will work at
all. This is not just "drop working 2.4.0-test9 <foo> into
2.4.0-test10-pre3", if it broke there is a reason that makes it not work
anymore. I tend to doubt the USB people submmited a patch to break
it... When 2.4.0 ships, everything should work; then you can complain. But
to get there, folks _must_ make an effort to fold the latest working,
tested patches into the kernel ASAP. Then again, they are all volunteers...
-- Dr. Horst H. von Brand mailto:vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 654431 Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 654239 Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile Fax: +56 32 797513 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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