Re: Announce: Linux-next (Or Andrew's dream :-))

[Theodore Tso <tytso@MIT.EDU>]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 11:06:17PM -0800, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> There is maybe a middle ground in this -next idea; as very first
> part of the series, the new api gets added, current users converted
> and api marked __deprecated.
> 
> Then there's a second part to the patch, which is a separate tree,
> which gets added at the very end, which removed the old api.
> 
> Both will go in at the same merge window, and the next-meister needs
> to track that no new users show up... but the final tree allows this
> to be done somewhat more gentle.
> 
> Doesn't work for API changes that just change the API rather than
> extending it, and doesn't solve the dependency issues. So I still
> think a cleansweep works best in general, but I suspect Andrew just
> disagrees with that.

Yes, that's exactly what I was suggesting.  The __deprecate only lasts
for the merge window, and we remove the old API at the end of the
merge window.  So it's only there for a very short time, and it's only
there to make the cleen sweep a little less painful --- not one where
"shit hangs around in the tree forever".

					- Ted