Re: Driver removals

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To: <Valdis.Kletnieks@...>
Cc: Adrian Bunk <bunk@...>, <linux-kernel@...>
Date: Saturday, February 16, 2008 - 2:11 pm

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

Drivers get better because someone who finds a benefit in them also 
finds a problem. They don't get better by developers looking for 
intermittent, probably load dependent, bugs which effect eight year old 
server hardware which was a low volume item, the developers are unlikely 
to have, and which is in use providing services, not on someone's 
desktop where it can reasonably be rebooted to test patches.

Not when drivers are "better" but when a new driver offers some benefit, 
be it reliability, capability, etc. When the new driver offers not a 
single benefit and the only "feature" is "possible unknown bugs," people 
are not going to change, and I don't think forcing people off working 
drivers is any more ethical than Microsoft killing XP to force people to 
VISTA. Less ethical, actually, because MSFT is looking for profit, and 
they make no pretense of caring about the users in any role but revenue 
stream.

Insert it right next to the diatribe about developers who think that 
because some new feature was a lot of work that Linus *must* put it in 
the kernel, or users show show proper respect and gratitude and disrupt 
their production hardware to test and debug some new code which offers 
zero added functionality on that hardware. If you think downtime is 
"free" then you  have not been working in the right environments, or for 
the right management.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  "Woe unto the statesman who makes war without a reason that will still
  be valid when the war is over..." Otto von Bismark 


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Messages in current thread:
Driver removals, Bill Davidsen, (Wed Feb 13, 10:26 pm)
Re: Driver removals, Adrian Bunk, (Thu Feb 14, 4:25 am)
Re: Driver removals, Bill Davidsen, (Fri Feb 15, 3:07 pm)
Re: Driver removals, Adrian Bunk, (Fri Feb 15, 6:28 pm)
Re: Driver removals, Bill Davidsen, (Fri Feb 15, 9:08 pm)
Re: Driver removals, Adrian Bunk, (Sat Feb 16, 3:19 am)
Re: Driver removals, David Newall, (Sat Feb 16, 6:52 am)
Re: Driver removals, , (Fri Feb 15, 9:52 pm)
Re: Driver removals, Bill Davidsen, (Sat Feb 16, 2:11 pm)
Re: Driver removals, Willy Tarreau, (Sat Feb 16, 3:39 am)
Re: Driver removals, , (Sun Feb 17, 12:27 am)