On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 03:44:10AM +0000, David Holland wrote: > On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 02:49:37PM +0000, Andrew Doran wrote: > > > I *do* think it's a useful datapoint to note that sun2, pmax, algor, etc. > > > are never, ever downloaded any more. > > > > Right, and these dead ports must be euthanized. The mountain of > > unused device drivers and core kernel code is a signficant hinderance to > > people working in the kernel. > > Speaking from the point of view of repeatedly touching every namei > call anywhere in the kernel... I'd have to disagree. Sure, it'd go > faster if there weren't a pile of legacy binary compat implementations > or if we removed all the mostly-unused fses, but if I wanted a toy > kernel I already have a pile of those in the office. Most of the > issues that the "dead" ports or fses trigger are real design or > structural problems that would be only masked, not resolved, by > removing that code. Supporting all the random bells and whistles that > e.g. compat_svr4 wants from namei is part of doing it correctly, and > having the correct infrastructure in place that can support these > things is important because the need/desire/demand will come along > again; it always does. For example, the $ORIGIN thing in ld.elf_so is > actually the same as one of the annoying cases in (IIRC) compat_svr4... > > I know we don't exactly see eye to eye on these issues but perhaps we > can reach some kind of middle ground?
That's a nice story. I'm speaking of low level kernel code and driver drivers, areas that to date you have had relatively little involvement in. I will however consider discussing the points you raise if/when I launch a jihad against emulations and file system code.