Re: [BUG] New Kernel Bugs

Mark Lord
2007-11-13T19:13:23Z

Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 01:47:10PM -0500, Mark Lord wrote:
>> Adrian Bunk wrote:
>> ...
>>> I did bisecting myself, and I know that it costs time and work.
>>>
>>> But the first point is the above one that it makes otherwise nearly
>>> undebuggable problems debuggable and fixable.
>> ..
>>
>> Definitely useful, no question.
>>
>> But the problem is now that kernel devs are addicted to it,
>> many won't even consider resolving a problem any other way.
>>
>> That's not "maintaining" (or supporting) one's code.
>
> What you replaced with two dots contained the answer to this:
>
> Another point is that it shifts the work from the few experienced
> developers to the many users. Users (and voluntary testers) we have
> many, but developer time for debugging bug reports is a quite scarce
> resource.
>
>> And when a "maintainer" is too busy to find/fix their own bugs,
>> that could be a sign that they've bitten off too big of a chunk
>> of the kernel, and it's time for them to distribute code maintainership.
>
> The problem is: Maintainers don't grow on trees.
>
> You need people who are both technically capable and willing to spend
> time on the non-sexy task of debugging problems.
>
> Where do you plan to find them?
>
> If you don't believe me, please find a maintainer for the currently
> unmaintained parallel port support.
>
> Or if you want a harder task, find a maintainer for the floppy driver...
..

Again, the problem is:

> But the problem is now that kernel devs are addicted to it,
> many won't even consider resolving a problem any other way.

And that's simply not good enough.