From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754189AbZATGSU (ORCPT ); Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:18:20 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752525AbZATGSK (ORCPT ); Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:18:10 -0500 Received: from cantor2.suse.de ([195.135.220.15]:41043 "EHLO mx2.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752397AbZATGSJ (ORCPT ); Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:18:09 -0500 Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:10:55 -0800 From: Greg KH To: Alexey Dobriyan Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: staging driver (epl) Message-ID: <20090120061055.GA4309@suse.de> References: <20090119210315.GA3805@x200.localdomain> <20090119235910.GA7171@suse.de> <20090120060435.GA3421@x200.localdomain> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20090120060435.GA3421@x200.localdomain> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.16 (2007-06-09) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 09:04:35AM +0300, Alexey Dobriyan wrote: > On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 03:59:10PM -0800, Greg KH wrote: > > On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 12:03:15AM +0300, Alexey Dobriyan wrote: > > > Greg, can I ssh to your box to do > > > > > > git rm -rf drivers/staging/epl > > > sed -i -e '/epl/d' drivers/staging/Kconfig > > > sed -i -e '/CONFIG_EPL/d' drivers/staging/Makefile > > > git commit -a -m 'staging: remove epl driver' > > > > > > ? > > > > That might be tough for you to do, as it's in every 2.6.29-rc1 release > > out there. That's a lot of ssh and sed commands needed for you to do :) > > > > > This driver doesn't meet even _the_ basic requirements. > > > > It meets the drivers/staging/ requirements of: > > - it builds > > - it is self-contained > > - someone is using it > > > > Well, some of the stuff in drivers/staging/ don't even meet the first > > requirement, making this one of the better drivers :) > > > > > It's _full_ of hungarian notation (iRet). > > > > > > It's full of typedefs. > > > > > > It's full of HAL (tEplApiInstance etc). > > > > > > Filenames (!) are in CamelCase. > > > > > > It creates sockets from kernel for something. > > > > > > It tries to interact with devfs. > > > > > > It may come as surprise but you also committed real Win32 code: > > > > > > drivers/staging/epl/EplTimeruWin32.c > > > drivers/staging/epl/ShbIpc-Win32.c > > > > > > Amazing, isn't it? > > > > No, not at all, I commited the tarball I was given, after shoehorning it > > into the kernel build system. > > > > > Do you accept _any_ code? > > > > Yes. > > > > > Exactly zero entry barrier? > > > > Pretty much. Know of any other drivers that should go into here that > > are floating around in the wild? > > > > Is this a problem? > > Well, yes. > > Suppose someone cleanups issues mentioned and make it at least look like > usual Linux driver. > > And then it likely will turn out that driver is so misdesigned that > it will be faster to just rewrite it. That's fine, I have no objection to a total rewrite, that's happening already to some drivers that are already in drivers/staging/. When those drivers then go into the main kernel tree, I'll instantly drop the drivers/staging/ driver. > Now why waste time doing cleanups when the risk that cleanups will only help > to see it's misdesigned is so high? I can't think of a Linux person mentally > dragging himself through issues mentioned to see the end result, it's very hard > to read such code after reading much Linux code. I agree, but there are companies already using this code today. So why not include it as it is useful to a very big group of users. If we get it cleaned up and working better, that even helps out more. > > Is the drivers/staging/ area just not properly documented for people to > > understand what is going on there and how it differs from the rest of > > the kernel? Should I write up something a bit more "formal"? > > No, too early to write policies. Heh, how about explainations :) thanks, greg k-h