Re: Background to the argument about CML2 design philosophy

Eric S. Raymond
2001-05-20T20:16:11Z

Jonathan Morton <chromi@cyberspace.org>:
> One caveat though - not all Macs have SCSI controllers, and not all that do
> even have one of the two standard ones.

I know. But these derivations are only for the old 68K macs, which don't
have PCI. Closed issue.

> >3. The MVME derivations are correct *if* (and only if) you agree to ignore
> >the possibility that somebody could want to ignore the onboard hardware,
> >plug outboard disk or Ethernet cards into the VME-bus connector, and
> >do something like running SCSI-over-ATAPI to the outboard device.
>
> ...and then someone else mentioned the possibility of f*x0r3d hardware. In
> this case, I would say this *isn't* a kernel-configuration issue but one of
> being able to disable the drivers for the malfunctioning hardware.

But the other side is going to ask: suppose you're memory-limited
(quite likely on older SBCs) and don't want to pay the core cost of
drivers you won't use? I don't really think we can duck this question
by talking about boot-time parameters.

> I think the MVME derivations are *perfectly* sensible - if the reference
> board and most (read: virtually all) derivatives have those features, turn
> them on by all means.

That's my gut feeling, too. But a lot of people insist that the only right
way is totally fine-grained control, even in weird edge cases like this one.

> To satisfy some others, you might want to say "Hey,
> these guys might want to *explicitly turn off* some of this stuff" - so
> provide an option under "Are you insane?" which presents all the "derived"
> symbols and allows the hackers to manually turn stuff off.

Interesting thought...
--
Eric S. Raymond

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the
Constitution which grant[s] a right to Congress of expending, on
objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.
-- James Madison, 1794