Re: Ingo, no more kconfig patches

Ingo Molnar
2008-05-03T19:15:27Z

* Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> wrote:

> On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 04:52:34AM +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> >
> > * Adrian Bunk <bunk@kernel.org> wrote:
> >
> > > I would really appreciate it if you could send the error message
> > > and the .config but not quick kconfig patches that are often wrong
> > > and that you try to push through the maintainers as you tried
> > > here.
> >
> > hey, sorry about invading your turf of trivial patches ;) I dont see
> > it as a problem that the thought process and the initial patch is
> > incomplete and ad-hoc. My preference is to work with people out in
> > the open, even on trivial issues. Dmitry is a capable maintainer who
> > understands his code very well and he'll resist me if i'm full of
> > it. Just like i resisted you when you were full of it. That's what
> > maintainers do, their job is to know their code.
> >
> > And, occasionally, as in this case, i might end up being faced with
> > a bug in the code i maintain ;)
>
> You completely miss my point.
>
> You wrongly (and loudly) blamed Dmitry for something you broke
> yourself.

i didnt. Read what i wrote:

|| no, you are wrong, read the current Kconfig rules again. If the user
|| can create a .config that does not build, it is driver breakage. It
|| always was, and has been in the past 15 years.
||
|| Kconfig might be extended to make dependencies easier to manage for
|| developers but until that is implemented you have to craft your
|| driver's dependencies with the current tools in a way that doesnt
|| break the build.

and that's exactly what happens with Roman's patch: a Kconfig subsystem
design bug (its inability to properly propagate the dependencies of
select's) is worked around in the driver space: by the LEDS_CORE driver
config introduction and no user-visible.

Roman's patch is obviously cleaner than my hack (i just fixed a single
instantiation of the problem, while he changed the LEDS driver
dependency structure), but it's still a workaround for a Kconfig
subsystem bug and the same problem could reoccur elsewhere. It could hit
anytime dual dependencies are introduced in a driver accidentally.

As Sam said it, fixing that Kconfig design bug would be "nice" - but
unfortunately the Kconfig subsystem is not actively developed anymore.
Would you like to volunteer for that? It would be a _very_ useful
contribution. One such fix could avoid hundreds or even thousands of
trivial problems in the future - it could avoid having to make hundreds
or thousands of trivial patches in the future.

Ingo