Hi Ingo, On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:17:09 +0200 Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > * Stephen Rothwell <sfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:36:29 +0200 Ingo Molnar <mingo@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > > [ ... just used by 90%+ of our active testers/developers ;-) ... ] > > > > An irrelevant argument in this case. > > why is the actual usage distribution of Linux irrelevant? We make Notice the "in this case"? In this case the code being changed clearly could affect other architectures, so checking that x86 is OK is clearly not enough (and that does not mean building it for 20+ other architectures, just using grep to see the consequences of the change and maybe discussing it with the affected architecture maintainers or on linux-arch). > Well, having a bias towards the most popular code and most popular > devices and platforms is not just acceptable and it is not just common > sense - it's also a basic required skill from any Linux subsystem > maintainer. Ignoring the most popular usage would be silly and > counter-productive. I agree with you whole heartedly, and if any other architecture maintainer broke x86, I would be complaining as well. And that has nothing to do with what I said. > And that requirement can be turned around to a certain degree: having an > unreasonable bias _against_ popular platforms is counterproductive. I.e. > you should weigh whether forcing the unreasonable use of our testing and > development resources is good for Linux. And again, this has nothing to do with what I said. In fact, I build every merge of linux-next for x86_64 allmodconfig ... in no way do I have a bias against any architecture and I am not trying to force everyone to do lots of cross builds, just, when making changes that could affect other architectures, to make a little effort to reduce the pain. > > But doing at least a simple grep for usages of the thing you are > > changing, that is not unreasonable ... especially if you are changing > > (usually not well defined in the first place) interfaces that the > > architectures have had to implement (as was the case here). > > this assumes that the connection is realized. It was not realized in > this case. OK, then let move on. > we cross-build them (and fix the bugs, if any are found), but it's all > driven by demand really or when we suspect there might be cross-arch > breakage (it wasnt in this case). If i have the choice between analysing > and fixing a bug that was reported by a real user and spending hours on > cross-builds i do chose the one that helps Linux more. Good to know. -- Cheers, Stephen Rothwell sfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sfr/
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