what is the rationale for all ethernet device vendors being "default y"?

[rpjday@crashcourse.ca (Robert P. J. Day)]

  just noticed that on my x86 system, when i do a:

  $ make defconfig

under "Ethernet driver support", all the top-level vendor choices
(3com, adaptec and so on) all have Kconfig entries with:

  default y

reasonably, for each vendor, all of their cards are not "default y"
(that would be kind of silly), but what is the logic behind making
each vendor selection "default y"?

  i ask because i'm putting together some kernel configuration
fragments that will contribute to a final .config file and, because of
all that "default y" stuff, i explicitly have to add "is not set"
lines to my fragments to turn off all the vendors in which i have no
interest.

  admittedly, as i read it, leaving them as "default y" doesn't seem
to generate any additional code unless you actually select a board
from that vendor; still, is there a reason the Kconfig files are set
up the way they are?

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                                 Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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