On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 04:37:15PM -0800, Greg KH wrote: > But I AM TRYING TO MAKE IT COMPATIBLE!!! > > That's what that config option is there for. If you happen to be > running a newer userspace, a different distro than what is in Debian > right now, or don't use HAL and Networkmanager, then disable that > option. Then all of sysfs looks just like it used to, no user visble > changes at all. It doesn't get any more compatible than that.
This is great, but I think the real problem isn't the config option, but what is changing if the config option isn't enabled. The claim which some, including Matt and Bron, seem to be making is that if you turn *off* CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED, you must be using at least hal 0.5.9-rc1, released ***yesterday***, or suffer breakages for at least some system configurations. So the problem with putting a date in Kconfig.txt help file, or in Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt, is that if there are other incompatible changes which are added to sysfs in say, December 2007 or January 2008, but which are papered over with CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED, and then come June 2008, CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED is unceremoniously ripped out, then users will get screwed. So the question really is are we really done making changes to sysfs, or maybe what we should do is talk about major version numbers to sysfs. Call what we have currently not CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED, but rather CONFIG_SYSFS_LAYOUT_1. At the moment, CONFIG_SYSFS_LAYOUT_2 is undergoing changes, but at some point we need to lock down and state that Layout version 2 is never going to change, and then people who want changes can go work on CONFIG_SYSFS_LAYOUT_3. The problem with calling CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED is that people think that since it's deprecated, it should be turned off, but if we have staged major version numbers, with guarantees of absolute stability once a particular major version number is locked down, then it may make it a lot easier to talk about what version of hal and udev and Network Manager is really needed for different versions. - Ted - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/