Re: [patch 00/04] RFC: Staging tree (drivers/staging)

Randy Dunlap
2008-09-25T01:04:18Z

On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:39:42 -0400 Parag Warudkar wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 7:00 PM, Greg KH <gregkh@suse.de> wrote:
> > So, does this all look good to everyone? Any questions/issues?
> >
>
> I sure hope this does not end up like EXPERIMENTAL although it
> essentially does duplicate the intent of EXPERIMENTAL.
> (In other words - drivers live there for ever in staging mode, we
> print warnings and generally nobody cares about the problem since the
> kernel is tainted.)
>
> That aside please at least substitute the word CRAP with something
> better - like TAINT_NON_PRODUCTION or TAINT_UNRELIABLE or
> TAINT_WORK_IN_PROGRESS or TAINT_EXPERIMENTAL . Arguably
> TAINT_EXPERIMENTAL could also be used for known broken
> CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL items. It might also be better to change the
> staging directory name to non-production or experimental - but that's
> just my preference.
>
> Also, I suppose it would be useful for Production machines to have a
> kernel command line flag or something to say don't load staging
> modules - for instance to prevent against automatic loading on drivers
> from staging directory to support some oddball device etc.
>
> Thinking more about it - could this whole thing not be achieved by
> setting per module experimental flag and refusing to insmod'ing
> experimental modules if -f was not specified. I believe force loading
> also taints the kernel? All drivers intended for staging can set that
> flag - this way we don't need another TAINT flag and there is no need
> for the directory name hack.

Thanks. I agree with Parag's comments.

Looks like overkill/duplication.

---
~Randy