Re: [PATCH] ata: sata_inic162x: remove dangerous broken driver

[Damien Le Moal <dlemoal@kernel.org>]

On 2026/09/15 8:47, Ethan Nelson-Moore wrote:
> The sata_inic162x driver was labeled as "very experimental" in
> commit bb9696192826 ("libata: make it clear that sata_inic162x is
> experimental") due to data corruption issues, but not marked as broken.
> Since then, no changes have been made to it that could fix these
> issues. Since the driver was not marked as broken, and the message
> about potential data corruption is only visible in the code and dmesg,
> it is possible that someone could enable the driver without realizing
> its potential for data corruption. Remove the driver to protect users'
> data.
> 
> Fixes: 1fd7a697a37b ("sata_inic162x: finally, driver for initio 162x SATA controllers, take #2")
> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
> Signed-off-by: Ethan Nelson-Moore <enelsonmoore@gmail.com>

The normal approach would be to first deprecate the driver, and then remove it
(some time later, generally one year). But given the broken nature of this
driver, and since there was no fixes (beside cosmetic/API changes) since 2013
when the warning was added, I have no problem with outright removing it. So:

Reviewed-by: Damien Le Moal <dlemoal@kernel.org>

-- 
Damien Le Moal
Western Digital Research