Linux 6.13 Staging Clears Out 107k Lines Of Code From Old & Unmaintained Drivers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 6.13 Staging Clears Out 107k Lines Of Code From Old & Unmaintained Drivers

Greg Kroah-Hartman is out today with all of the pull requests for Linux 6.13 of the areas of the kernel he oversees. Most notable with the updates on the staging side are clearing out several drivers seeing no real code activity and no apparent users of the mainline Linux kernel... As such the staging pull lightens the kernel by around 107k lines of code...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-Staging

[avis]

the drivers can always be reverted / merged back but otherwise they are gone without anyone maintaining them.

No, that cannot be further from the truth.

The Linux kernel has no stable internal API/ABI and sooner rather than later these out of tree drivers will fail to compile.

Users of NVIDIA, ZFS, VirtualBox, some Realtek USB WiFi adapters will attest to this.

[DanL]

sooner rather than later these out of tree drivers will fail to compile.

???
If someone maintains them, that implies they will be updated to work with the current kernel.

[skeevy420]

No, that cannot be further from the truth.

The Linux kernel has no stable internal API/ABI and sooner rather than later these out of tree drivers will fail to compile.

Users of NVIDIA, ZFS, VirtualBox, some Realtek USB WiFi adapters will attest to this.

You mix just enough fact with hyperbole of two related, yet different, topics to make a bad argument. Stable A$I and In-N-Out Tree.

Yeah, the kernel doesn't have a stable A$I so eventually everything will fail to compile without active maintainers.

Users of in-tree things can also attest to that which is why GKH is pruning the tree to proactively prevent that from happening.

In tree or out, without active maintainers various parts of the kernel will eventually fail to compile. Even with a Stable A$I we risk it being done wrong and needing Stable A$I v2, some new feature being added that needs to be plumbed into existing parts, there's bug fixes or new compiler issues, and more.

[matthewtrescott]

GPIB subsystem will be nice. Maybe I’ll be able to use my old oscope with Sigrok

[avis]

???
If someone maintains them, that implies they will be updated to work with the current kernel.

So the drivers in question are being removed precisely because no one wants to maintain them and yet you claim someone will? Why wouldn't they step up right now?

Why is this idiotic statement being upvoted I've not idea.

You mix just enough fact with hyperbole of two related, yet different, topics to make a bad argument. Stable A$I and In-N-Out Tree.

Yeah, the kernel doesn't have a stable A$I so eventually everything will fail to compile without active maintainers.

Users of in-tree things can also attest to that which is why GKH is pruning the tree to proactively prevent that from happening.

In tree or out, without active maintainers various parts of the kernel will eventually fail to compile. Even with a Stable A$I we risk it being done wrong and needing Stable A$I v2, some new feature being added that needs to be plumbed into existing parts, there's bug fixes or new compiler issues, and more.

Where was I wrong exactly?

The NT kernel can maintain stable API/ABI fore more than a decade. Linux cannot for more than a single release. End of story.

[Britoid]

So the drivers in question are being removed precisely because no one wants to maintain them and yet you claim someone will? Why wouldn't they step up right now?

Why is this idiotic statement being upvoted I've not idea.



Where was I wrong exactly?

The NT kernel can maintain stable API/ABI fore more than a decade. Linux cannot for more than a single release. End of story.

Windows having day one support for hardware where as Linux takes months if not years for it to trickle down is a reason why the Linux desktop is never going to happen.

IMHO not having a stable driver API is a big mistake that causes real world problems (e.g. Android updates are a ticking time bomb)

[DanL]

So the drivers in question are being removed precisely because no one wants to maintain them and yet you claim someone will?

No. I didn't claim that. I said "If"...

Where was I wrong exactly?

Trying to turn a routine news announcement about removing cruft from staging into your millionth rant about stable API in the kernel.

Windows having day one support for hardware where as Linux takes months if not years for it to trickle down is a reason why the Linux desktop is never going to happen.

That's far more about manufacturer support than stable/unstable API.

[skeevy420]

So the drivers in question are being removed precisely because no one wants to maintain them and yet you claim someone will? Why wouldn't they step up right now?

Why is this idiotic statement being upvoted I've not idea.

He claimed, implied, however you want to word it, that the drivers could be brought back assuming someone steps up to maintain them.

Where was I wrong exactly?

Independently, both of the things you said are true. That there is no stable A$I and that sooner or later they'll fail to compile. That's why they're being removed. They don't have maintainers to ensure that later won't become sooner. If someone stepped up to maintain them then they could be reverted / merged back. That's also true.

Before that you had:

The Article: the drivers can always be reverted / merged back but otherwise they are gone without anyone maintaining them.

Avis: No, that cannot be further from the truth.

Which part of that is further from the truth: that they can always be reverted / merged back or that they're gone without anyone maintaining them. Because both of those are true statements, too. They're being removed due to lack of maintainers. Even if there was a Stable A$I there would still be a need for compiler maintenance and a need for people to keep up with their own contributions.

The NT kernel can maintain stable API/ABI fore more than a decade. Linux cannot for more than a single release. End of story.

So what? That kind of role is covered by Commercial Linux, Distribution Linux, Upstream Linux, and the Civil Infrastructure Platform all offering the user some semblance of Stable A$I with kernels that have 2 to 10 years of support and stability.

[NotMine999]

So the drivers in question are being removed precisely because no one wants to maintain them and yet you claim someone will? Why wouldn't they step up right now?

Why is this idiotic statement being upvoted I've not idea.

You exactly quoted the other poster but casually or intentionally overlooked the key operative word in that quote. It's at the start of that quote.

[QUOTE=avis;n1509015]
Originally posted by DanL View Post

???
If someone maintains them, that implies they will be updated to work with the current kernel.
[QUOTE]

Avis / Birdie / Artem S. Tashnikov ... you are truly a gratuitous piece of work