Re: [RFC] Patch series to remove devfs [00/22]

[Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>]

On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 05:36:56PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 07:39:04AM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 12:21:34PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > > On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 12:43:27AM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > > >...
> > > > Comments welcome.
> > > >...
> > > 
> > > Please don't remove the !CONFIG_DEVFS_FS dummies from devfs_fs_kernel.h.
> > > 
> > > I'm sure some driver maintainers will want to keep the functions in 
> > > their code because they share their drivers between 2.4 and 2.6 .
> > 
> > All drivers should be in the mainline kernel tree, so why would they
> > need this?  Remember, out-of-the-tree drivers are on their own...
> 
> I'm talking about drivers in the mainline kernel tree.
> 
> In some cases the driver author supports both 2.4 and 2.6 and prefers to 
> support them in one file. Sometimes he submits the latest version of his 
> driver to Marcelo or Linus.
> 
> If you remove the global function dummies, you force every driver 
> maintainer who works this way to add the function dummies to their 
> drivers.
> 
> Yes, there are many places where 2.4 and 2.6 are not source compatible 
> for good reasons. But if the effort for maintaining compatibility 
> between 2.4 and 2.6 in one area is as easy as keeping a header file with 
> some dummy funtions it's worth considering.
> 
> And keeping the compatibility stuff in one file instead of spreaded 
> through the kernel sources makes the cleanup to remove the last 
> occurences a few years from now easier.

How do these 2.4+2.6 drivers integrate with sysfs? Without proper
2.6-driver-core integration they will not work anyway.

Kay
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