Re: [GIT PULL] firewire updates for 6.6

[Linus Torvalds]

On Fri, 8 Sept 2023 at 20:35, Takashi Sakamoto <o-takashi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> In the second half of 6.6 merge window, Jan Engelhardt sent the change. It
> allows any front ends of Kconfig to deactivate FireWire subsystem at a
> clip.

I pulled this, but after looking at it, I unpulled it again.

We *already* had this. Saying 'N' to the existing FIREWIRE option
would disable all of the firewire stack, since the rest then just has

        depends on FIREWIRE

on it.

The only exception is the firewire sniffing side (FIREWIRE_NOSY),
which technically doesn't need the firewire stack to exist or to work.

The other thing this adds is a

        depends on PCI || COMPILE_TEST

for the firewire subsystem, which makes sense since the controllers
all depend on PCI even if the code itself doesn't care (thus the
COMPILE_TEST) part.

Anyway, both of those changes are fine by me - but adding a new config
option, and bothering users that want firewire support with TWO
questions about "do you want firewire" is just annoying and frankly
just stupid.

I have said this five hundred times before, but I guess I'll say it
five hundred times again (the Proclaimers even wrote a song about it):
we don't make the config options worse, and we don't ask people stupid
things.

So no.

The actual core limitations I'd be ok with: just add that

        depends on PCI || COMPILE_TEST

to the *existing* FIREWIRE config, and add a

        depends on FIREWIRE

to FIREWIRE_NOSY for all I care. That potentiall y*removes* annoying
questions, not adds them.

And if people want to change the existing menu to a menuconfig
(*keeping* the existing FIREWIRE config option, not adding a new one),
that's fine too.

But this "let's add yet another mindless option to ask users" is _not_
acceptable.

              Linus