Linux 5.7 Staging Will Be ~28.7k Lines Of Code Lighter Thanks To Nuking WUSB + UWB

With the Linux 5.7 kernel cycle in two months there is some "spring cleaning" within the staging area that is leading to almost twenty-nine thousand lines of code being removed thanks to removing a deprecated feature.

Last year we reported on Linux deprecating Wireless USB and Ultra Wideband subsystems. That WUSB and UWB code was demoted after being orphaned without a code maintainer for years with Wireless USB really not being popular in an era of Bluetooth and WiFi advancements. With no one having expressed concern or stepping up to maintain the code since deprecating WUSB and UWB, the code is now set to be removed with Linux 5.7.

The Wireless USB 1.0 standard is already fifteen years old (or ten years on the 1.1 revision) and its 480 Mbit/s rating for three meter transfers or 110 Mbit/s for up to ten meter transfers isn't anything really exciting in 2020: modern WiFi standards are certainly much faster and support longer distances while there are various MA-USB/USB-over-IP solutions in development and Bluetooth has seen much more success than WUSB while not normally tapping out at ten meters. With Certified Wireless USB devices not being common, the Linux support for WUSB and the underlying Ultra Wideband (UWB) support has left to bit rot.

Greg Kroah-Hartman has removed WUSB and UWB code from the staging area in his staging-next branch. This means that unless there are any last minute regrets, this 28.7k lines of code will be removed from the Linux 5.7 kernel.