On Mon, 2019-09-09 at 07:24 -0700, Mark Salyzyn wrote: > > > How is this patch applicable to stable kernels??? I'm not sure I even buy the arguments to get it into the regular kernel. > B) there is a shortcoming in _all_ kernel versions with respect to > hidden configurations options like this, hoping to set one precedent in > how to handle them if acceptable to the community. This really is the only argument, I think, but I don't really see it as a shortcoming. The kernel is handling this properly, after all, with respect to itself. You just have issues with out-of-tree modules. And while it is true, setting that precedent might ultimately mean we'll end up with ~80 (**) new Kconfig options in net/ alone ... That's certainly *NOT* a precedent I want to set nor the way I want to see this handled, when we already get complaints that we're adding too many Kconfig options (and those are ones we really do need). Obviously, nothing stops you from putting this into your kernel (and I guess you already are), but I don't really see how it benefits us as a kernel community. > E) Timely discussion item for LPC? Perhaps you should indeed drive that discussion there, this really is bigger than this particular wireless feature. At the very least, to avoid Kconfig complexity explosion, add a single new config OPTIONS_FOR_OUT_OF_TREE_MODULES bool "..." depends on EXPERT help ... and make LEGACY_WEXT_ALLCONFIG depend on that. But if you're honest and obvious about it like that, I have a hard time seeing you get that into the tree past Greg or Linus... Also, you probably know this, but in this particular case you really should just get rid of your wext dependencies ... this stuff is literally decades old, and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, it also has issues that have been known for a decade or so that simply cannot be solved. (**) git grep "bool$" and "tristate$" in Kconfig files under net/ yields a bit more, but here you already set 5, who knows. Still, even if it's only 20 in the end that's too much. johannes
