From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sun, 20 May 2001 16:16:11 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sun, 20 May 2001 16:16:00 -0400 Received: from snark.tuxedo.org ([207.106.50.26]:6671 "EHLO snark.thyrsus.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sun, 20 May 2001 16:15:49 -0400 Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 16:13:21 -0400 From: "Eric S. Raymond" To: Jonathan Morton Cc: David Woodhouse , Arjan van de Ven , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Background to the argument about CML2 design philosophy Message-ID: <20010520161321.D4488@thyrsus.com> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com Mail-Followup-To: "Eric S. Raymond" , Jonathan Morton , David Woodhouse , Arjan van de Ven , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <20010518112625.A14309@thyrsus.com> <20010518113726.A29617@devserv.devel.redhat.com> <20010518114922.C14309@thyrsus.com> <8485.990357599@redhat.com> <20010520111856.C3431@thyrsus.com> <15823.990372866@redhat.com> <20010520114411.A3600@thyrsus.com> <16267.990374170@redhat.com> <20010520131457.A3769@thyrsus.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: ; from chromi@cyberspace.org on Sun, May 20, 2001 at 07:31:12PM +0100 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Jonathan Morton : > 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