Re: [RFC][patch 00/12] clocksource / timekeeping rework V2

[Daniel Walker <dwalker@fifo99.com>]

On Thu, 2009-07-30 at 13:56 -0700, john stultz wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-07-30 at 11:08 -0700, Daniel Walker wrote:
> > On Thu, 2009-07-30 at 10:16 -0700, john stultz wrote:
> > > Clocksources as modules was one of the initial design goals I had way
> > > back. The benefit being that an older distro kernel could be made to
> > > support newer stranger hardware via a clocksource driver. While the
> > > hardware vendors have for the most part consolidated on HPET/ACPI PM
> > > which has mostly avoided the need, I still think its worth preserving.
> > 
> > If the PIT case is a real use case for unregister than we can keep it
> > around. If not, then that path just becomes unused and all unused code
> > is open for removal from my perspective.
> > 
> > If the case you describe above is a good one, then someone eventually
> > will add back the unregister path. Which should come with a good reason
> > and with an actual user of the code..
> 
> The case I describe above is one where the user of the code doesn't
> necessarily have the ability to add back the unregister path. 

I'm not sure I understand your example.. Your saying a situation where
the kernel can't modified and reloaded, and the hardware clocks aren't
fully implemented in code yet?

> Old distro kernels can be difficult to make changes to when new hardware
> is later released, so being able to just backport a module, compile and
> load it to get a unexpectedly strange new bit of hardware to work with
> an older distro kernel seems valuable enough to keep the code around to
> me.

You can just as easily back port the code as a built in, and reload the
kernel right? Why would it need to be a module?

Daniel