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On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 12:54 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann |
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<volkerarmin@××××××××××.com> wrote: |
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> Am Dienstag 27 September 2011, 04:05:31 schrieb Grant Edwards: |
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>> That sounds good, but in practice it doesn't work. |
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>> |
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>> 1) The kernel developers don't support any existing customers. Bugs |
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>> are only fixed for customers who are willing to run the next |
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>> kernel verison. I've got customers that are still running 2.4 |
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>> kernels. 2.6.18 is still widely used. Will the kernel developers |
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>> add new features, support for new hardware, or fix bugs for those |
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>> customers. Not a chance. |
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> |
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> so what? There are long term stable kernels with no api changes. Hmm... |
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Except they have drivers which are buggy and require backported fixes. |
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>> 2) The kernel developers only make sure that drivers compile. They |
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>> don't have the hardware or knowlege required to actually test |
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>> them. One of our drivers _is_ in the kernel. Sure, it builds, |
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>> but AFAIK, it hasn't actually worked for at least 10 years. |
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> |
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> and nobody complains on lkml about it - seems that nobody uses your hardware. |
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Except his customers. Who are going directly to him for support. |
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> If something stops working (called a 'regression' btw) it has to be fixed. |
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> Linus is very clear about that. |
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That's all well and good, but it doesn't fix things that weren't |
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working correctly in the first place. Upstream kernel doesn't backport |
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fixes, that's what distros and people like Grant, for their customers. |
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And Linus's statement as quoted in that article (and my snippet) |
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doesn't include one important caveat: Sometimes, they drop support for |
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things that either have no maintainer, or are obsolete and difficult |
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to keep. |
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>> Trying to maintain two drivers (one in-kernel and one out-of-kernel) |
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>> just creates twice as much work for no gain. |
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> |
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> then don't be outside the kernel. |
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If we take your position, in this context, to its logical outcome, it |
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sounds like you're saying that distributions like Gentoo, Red Hat and |
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Debian shouldn't maintain older kernels with backported fixes. |
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There exist systems which cannot be upgraded with financial sanity; |
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the existing install works well enough that it would cost more to |
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upgrade. The reasons might be that they're using an old software |
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package which was abandoned, and taking ownership of the code isn't |
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always sane. I was actually approached by someone in my area a couple |
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weeks ago who was in just this kind of scenario. |
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-- |
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:wq |
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