From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754201Ab1ASQSI (ORCPT ); Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:18:08 -0500 Received: from moutng.kundenserver.de ([212.227.17.8]:63874 "EHLO moutng.kundenserver.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754036Ab1ASQSG (ORCPT ); Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:18:06 -0500 From: Arnd Bergmann To: Nick Bowler Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/4] BKL: move CONFIG_BKL to staging Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:17:58 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.12.2 (Linux/2.6.35-22-generic; KDE/4.3.2; x86_64; ; ) Cc: Linus Torvalds , LKML References: <1295385422-3592-1-git-send-email-arnd@arndb.de> <1295385422-3592-5-git-send-email-arnd@arndb.de> <20110119154419.GA21411@elliptictech.com> In-Reply-To: <20110119154419.GA21411@elliptictech.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201101191717.58277.arnd@arndb.de> X-Provags-ID: V02:K0:kVj5DgVJ2ZddQCtOclopTpxEwZ3FEc7Mvn0N1Ne6N4g g4bkJMDMQ6w3l4xp8aWUV6dqWpB2Fqse21+Xh6ZDqJmDm8pVVp wr1q1HHMv3JthCQKg1ctCeKus68Zo3SE/jUWr9GydsucbANTJh 6VQDoXHzfHa+IS3352k5F2kWOR/GhAGFIA9f/SPSt6Gf7isXGB tg1BfbBGD57Q6nJ91HfNQ== Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wednesday 19 January 2011, Nick Bowler wrote: > I think this patch is not very nice. It will cause working kernel > configurations to turn into broken kernel configurations when the user > does 'make oldconfig', with no warning. > > These drivers that use the BKL work fine. Removing working features > with no adequate replacement available seems like a serious regression > to me. I wouldn't call it a serious regression since the code is still there and both the symptom and the solution are rather obvious. What's more important is to make any people still relying on the code aware that it's going away unless someone fixes it, so they have the chance to send patches or pay someone to fix it for them. The remaining drivers that are still relying on the BKL are very rarely used and for the less obscure ones (ufs, ipx and x.25), people have volunteered to fix them (though I have seen no proper patches for these yet). For the rest, I suppose if nobody complains, they can actually go away, according to the logic that if nobody is using them, they most likely are broken anyway and more a security risk than they are worth. Anyway, it seems that you're lucky this time, because I managed to miss the merge window by being away from my test box for the most part of it. Arnd