Somebody in the thread at some point said: > While one obviously _should_ file a bugzilla in such a case, > is relying on bugzillas really a satisfactory strategy? One thing is for sure, if the developers do not hear that they just trashed something, they won't fix it except by accident. > There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different WiFi devices. > It seems to me that the onus is on the developer > to ensure as far as possible that changes he/she makes do not impinge > on devices working with the previous version. Well that's not going to happen, because the only way someone writing code can meet that standard is to sit on his hands entirely. It also presupposes that the existing version of the code is in a golden state that any deviation from will make matters worse. If the existing code is shaky and shows no signs of maturing by small tinkering, then it has to be ripped out by the roots and redone. That totally violates your concept above, yet is the right thing to do. > I'm not sure if "testing" is really the best, or even a feasible, > way of doing this. > Perhaps the developer should ask himself, "Is it conceivable > that this change may not work with some device somewhere in the universe?" I hope the developer asks himself instead, when I am done doing this, will it be better than it was before I started, accounting for any pain I can cause? > I must say, it's not really clear to me > why something like WiFi should actually change > between Fedora kernels corresponding to the same vanilla kernel. > Is the Fedora community regarded as a test-bed for such development? Several wireless drivers are in Fedora kernels that are not in vanilla. What do you prefer, no support for those devices at all or the best support that is currently available, so people can feed back issues and make the support better? -Andy
