From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754752Ab0CEHPL (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Mar 2010 02:15:11 -0500 Received: from mail-gy0-f174.google.com ([209.85.160.174]:46185 "EHLO mail-gy0-f174.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754682Ab0CEHPJ (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Mar 2010 02:15:09 -0500 Message-ID: <4B90AFF3.3030100@pathscale.com> Date: Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:17:07 +0700 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22C=2E_Bergstr=F6m=22?= User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 (X11/20090909) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Pekka Enberg CC: Ingo Molnar , Ben Skeggs , Dave Airlie , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Jesse Barnes , dri-devel@lists.sf.net, Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: [git pull] drm request 3 References: <20100304103655.0b14343f@jbarnes-piketon> <20100304105624.70fe845e@jbarnes-piketon> <21d7e9971003041125x1aee3b3ew1e407ca6695e10fc@mail.gmail.com> <21d7e9971003041406n53d9cae0h53374abf3dca494e@mail.gmail.com> <1267748927.3496.6.camel@nisroch> <20100305064955.GA6453@elte.hu> <84144f021003042306w2e017efbva2be364c1c4980a7@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <84144f021003042306w2e017efbva2be364c1c4980a7@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Pekka Enberg wrote: > On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 8:49 AM, Ingo Molnar wrote: > >> The conclusion is crystal clear, breaking an ABI via a "flag day" >> cleanup/feature/etc is: >> >> - wrong >> >> - harmful >> >> - limits the developer base >> >> - limits the tester base >> >> - wastes time and effort. (fewer developers/testers means that while _this_ >> feature was easier to add, all your _future_ features will be a bit harder >> to do. It compounds up.) >> >> - so it hurts even the very developer who is most convinced that this was the >> right thing to do >> >> It's a bad technical decision throughout. It's masochistic and often suicidal >> to just about any project in essence. I've seen projects that did it once and >> died just due to that single act of stupidity. I've seen projects that have >> done it a few times and took the usage hit, limped along with the wounds and >> never grew to the size they could have achieved. I've seen projects that did >> it once, took the hit, learned from it and never did it again. >> > > Agreed. What bothers me in this discussion is that people keep > bringing up the fact that nouveau is mostly developed by volunteers > and thus it doesn't make sense to make sure it's backwards (or > forwards) compatible. But the way I see it, it's the complete > opposite. It's _more_ important to support ABIs for community-driven > efforts because you're relying on people who by definition don't have > time to waste. While the nouveau people might have good intentions, > I'm afraid they might be severely limiting their developer and tester > base because they're not focused on real world problems (like the ones > Linus is seeing). staging != stable Nobody guaranteed a stable API for staging and in fact it was stated previously it needed to be changed. Please lets just get back to work and stop declaring the sky is falling.