Re: Linux 2.6.16.30-pre1

Stefan Richter
2006-09-24T19:50:52Z

Adrian Bunk wrote:
> But having:
> - two saa7134 cards in your computer and
> - one of them formerly not supported and
> - depending on one of them being the first one
> is a case you can theoretically construct, but then there's the point
> that this is highly unlikely,

Yes, this is an unlikely scenario.

> and OTOH the value of the added support is more realistic.

But then I think people don't really expect additional hardware support
from a stable kernel series.

> If I was as extremely regarding regressions as you describe regarding
> hardware updates, I would also have to reject any bugfixes that are not
> security fixes since they might cause regressions.
>
> I do know that the only value of the 2.6.16 tree lies in a lack of
> regressions and act accordingly, but I'm trying to do this in a
> pragmatic way.

If there was more manpower, driver updates could be maintained as extra
patchkits separately to the kernel. I know that some people would like
to have exactly this: A minimally updated base plus a choice of specific
driver updates as add-ons.

In fact that's what I do with the IEEE 1394 drivers --- although not
primarily to support this kind of user base but rather to make it easier
to get bugfixes tested by bug reporters. However I can only afford to do
this by an all-or-nothing approach: I put almost _all_ driver changes
into these patchkits. That means full risk of regressions but also
complete feature updates and minimal divergence from mainline. This was
trivial to do so far.
--
Stefan Richter
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