On Sat, 27 Oct 2018, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
This stuff is so getting annoying. I don't understand why all of a sudden there is such a big urge to kick everything out that is old. Is the Linux kernel supposed to be an x86-only project?
Some maintainers don't like mature code. But it's hard to figure out why it is so. Defect density in old code is never used as a criterion. I guess there are perverse incentives at work in industry which don't exist in the wider community. E.g. workers being paid according to the number of lines of code added/removed/modified. Refactoring legacy code can be automated. But doing so would touch fewer lines of code than wholesale deletion, so the incentive seems to be backwards.
I don't get it. The port is actively maintained and working well, new drivers are being added. And there is a vibrant community using it. Try buying a used Amiga on eBay and you know what I mean. There is new hardware being developed all the time. Just recently, we added support for the xsurf100 network card from Individual Computers. And I expect more drivers to be added in the future. Is Linux really only a commercial product now so that everything that is not maintained by a large company needs to go quick?
That has been my impression also. It's very short sighted, because standard practice in engineering is to re-use proven ideas. Old designs get shipped in new guises, albeit smaller and faster. The alternative to re-use is re-invention, which is not obviously profitable but does generate economic activity. Therefore, re-use may be undesirable according to Keynesianism. Also, bogus patents issued for designs that already have prior art may be compounding the problem but this is all just speculation. --
Adrian
