Re: [PATCH] net: ethernet: toshiba: ps3_gelic_wireless: Remove driver using deprecated API wext

[Johannes Berg]

On Tue, 2024-12-24 at 09:07 +0100, Philipp Hortmann wrote:
> Driver was contributed in 2008.
> 
> The following reasons lead to the removal:
> - This driver generates maintenance workload for itself and for API wext

So I've been wondering, why are you so concerned about this? And in
particular, more concerned about it than the people actually doing the
maintenance? :)

We got here because I removed a *staging* driver that was in the way of
some wext cleanups, but that had a thousand other reasons to never go
anywhere anyway.

> - wext is deprecated and only used by two wireless drivers in
>   mainline kernel

true

> - no progress changing to mac80211

It fundamentally cannot be converted to mac80211, it has a whole
different model. In fact it cannot even be converted to cfg80211 because
some APIs it uses just never existed there, and likely never will.

> Tested a rebased version of this patch on the Playstation 3. Used
> T2 Linux with Kernel 6.12.5 to test the Ethernet connection.
> 

Arguably that's a pretty strong argument for *not* removing it, if it's
actually relatively simple today to bring up the latest kernel on a PS3.

johannes