From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Benjamin LaHaise Subject: Re: [2.6 patch] schedule SHAPER for removal Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2006 12:47:07 -0500 Message-ID: <20060122174707.GC1008@kvack.org> References: <20060119021150.GC19398@stusta.de> <20060119215722.GO16285@kvack.org> <20060121004848.GM31803@stusta.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Andrew Morton , Alan Cox , jgarzik@pobox.com, netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Return-path: To: Adrian Bunk Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060121004848.GM31803@stusta.de> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Sat, Jan 21, 2006 at 01:48:48AM +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote: > Do we really have to wait the three years between stable Debian releases > for removing an obsolete driver that has always been marked as > EXPERIMENTAL? > > Please be serious. I am completely serious. The traditional cycle of obsolete code that works and is not causing a maintenence burden is 2 major releases -- one release during which the obsolete feature spews warnings on use, and another development cycle until it is actually removed. That's at least 3 years, which is still pretty short compared to distro cycles. There seems to be a lot of this disease of removing code for the sake of removal lately, and it's getting to the point of being really annoying. If the maintainer of the code in question isn't pushing for its removal, I see no need to rush the process too much, especially when the affected users aren't even likely to see the feature being marked obsolete since they don't troll the source code looking for things that break setups. -ben