Re: [GIT] Networking

David Miller
2012-12-13T03:22:41Z

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:37:08 -0800

> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 6:27 PM, David Miller <davem@davemloft.net> wrote:
>>
>> There are two SCTP HMAC cookie algorithms, MD5 and SHA1.
>>
>> What used to happen is that you had to choose one at build
>> time, and then you were stuck with that decision and it was
>> all that you could use.
>>
>> Now, it's selectable at run time.
>>
>> If there's anything you find particularly anti-social about
>> this, I'm sure we can adjust it.
>
> So I'd suggest doing the same thing that the new thermal throttling
> Kconfig does: start off by asking for the default algorithm, then ask
> about the others.
>
> The "choice" part selects the one that is default (so it never gets
> asked about and is obviously compiled in), and the rest default to no
> like we should.
>
> See drivers/thermal/Kconfig for an example of this. I think we do it
> in other places too, but that one happens to be new so I picked it as
> an example.
>
> The rule should be that we *never* default anything to 'yes', unless
> it's old functionality that we always compiled in before too, and now
> it got made conditional. So if you see a "default y" on new options,
> you should basically consider it broken.
>
> We're already bloating too much, we should not encourage people to
> make things more bloated than necessary.
>
> Btw, that Kconfig option has basically no useful help text either.
> What's the point of repeating the question as a "help" message?
>
> If people can't explain why anybody should enable it, it sure as hell
> shouldn't default to 'y'. Maybe it shouldn't exist at all?

Neil and Vlad, please take care of this.

Thanks.