From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Frank Rowand Subject: Re: [PATCH] PM: Hide CONFIG_PM from users Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2011 18:52:00 -0800 Message-ID: <4D50AFD0.9020704@am.sony.com> References: <1297081335-13631-1-git-send-email-broonie@opensource.wolfsonmicro.com> Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <1297081335-13631-1-git-send-email-broonie@opensource.wolfsonmicro.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Mark Brown Cc: "Rafael J. Wysocki" , Len Brown , Alan Stern , linux-pm@lists.linux-foundation.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , Dmitry Torokhov , linux-embedded@vger.kernel.org On 02/07/11 04:22, Mark Brown wrote: > It is very rare to find a current system which is both sufficiently > resource constrained to want to compile out power management support > and sufficiently power insensitive to be able to tolerate doing so. > Since having the configuration option requires non-zero effort to > maintain, with ifdefery in most drivers, but it is used with vanishing > rarity it is simpler to just remove the option. Proof by assertion that it is used with vanishing rarity. > Begin doing so by hiding it from users - this should attract complaints > from any active users. The option is left disabled for the IA64 Ski > simulator which is a partial simulator for IA64 systems mostly missing > device support. This is a very limited use case which is unlikely to > ever want to enable most drivers. That is not a good method of getting feedback from users. 1) It immediately removes the ability to have CONFIG_PM undefined, without first giving active users a chance to provide feedback. 2) The removal of that ability is not obvious ("make oldconfig" does not say anything about CONFIG_PM). It is easy to overlook a config change that happens silently. 3) The active users may not move to a newer version of the kernel that contains this change until after it has been decided that there are no users of the config option since no one complained in a timely manner. Would it be appropriate to use Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt if this truly will be removed? -Frank