Re: [stable] Wanted: Allow adding new device IDs during the -stable cycle

[Chris Wright <chrisw@sous-sol.org>]

* Greg KH (greg@kroah.com) wrote:
> On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 03:04:08PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> >  Really, it is just silly to think that one-line PCI IDs patches will cause 
> >  any harm at all, and it should be self-evident that there is clear potential 
> >  to HELP Linux users.  That's why we're all here, right?

Yes, we're here to help.  The only compelling reasons not do to it were/are:

1) -stable has never been about adding features (easy to consider new
hardware support a feature).

2) In theory new hardware can seem to work with a simple PCI ID
update, and later we find it needs extra quirk handling or specific
driver support.  This could mean adding buggy support for new hardware
to -stable.  In practice, hopefully this isn't a real issue.

3) It hasn't been a pressing issue brought to our attention until this
thread and its predecessor earlier in the month.

My own personal experience is each time I've needed a PCI ID update for
new hardware it's also needed changes to the driver (read: e1000, every
single time).  So from my perspective neither sysfs nor relaxing -stable
rules slightly would actually help provide support for new hardware,
but that's clearly limited experience.

> I'm not disagreeing that it will help a set of users, or that it will
> cause any harm at all.  It's just currently outside the scope for what
> we defined -stable as, and it will slightly increase the workload that
> Chris and I have in keeping up with these patches.
> 
> So, if there is an overwhelming majority of people that strongly feel
> that this is a good thing, fine, we can try it out.

Yes, if it will serve -stable users better, we can give it a trial run
to see how it goes.

thanks,
-chris