Re: The direction linux is taking

[Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>]

On Sat, Dec 29, 2001 at 05:59:15PM -0600, Oliver Xymoron wrote:
> > > > Is it really true that there are any significant number of patches
> > > > submitted that don't even compile?
> > >
> > > No
> >
> > OK, so there are no significant numbers of patches that the patchbot will
> > eliminate, by your admission.
> 
> Except for the ones that get garbage collected after each new kernel
> release WHEN THE VALIDITY OF THE QUEUE IS RECHECKED.

Which is how many?  Do you have _any_ data which shows that this is going
to do anything?  Everything I know says that you're in the 1% area.  My
experience is perhaps different than yours, but I'd like to know why.

> > So what's the point?  What is the problem you have solved?  And where's
> > the code?  This sounds like you have whittled it down to a cgi-script of
> > about 100 lines of perl.  How about building it and demonstrating the
> > usefulness rather than telling us how great it is going to be?
> 
> The original suggestion (about the possibility of compile-testing patches
> incrementally) was dependent on kbuild and CML2 being in the kernel
> already, but I do have a proof-of-concept for the rest in the works.

Great, so set it up, write a parser that grabs all the patches out of the
list, run them through your system, and report back how much it helps.
I don't think it will but if it does and you are willing to do the work,
more power to you.
-- 
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Larry McVoy            	 lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitmover.com/lm