On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 05:39:12PM +0100, Stefan Schmidt wrote: > Hello. > > Missing a bit context here as the original message never made it to the > list. > linux-wpan was cc'ed inside the mail, but there was some html stuff there... I don't know why it isn't arrived at linux-wpan. Anyway... There exists a bugzilla entry for that and John Linville said that I should care about that, see [0]. > On 10/03/16 10:10, Alexander Aring wrote: > >Hi, > > > >I think this is a good time to remove the deprecated netlink interface > >for 802.15.4. > > > >Stefan please say your opinion here. There should be really nobody which > >use this interface anymore. > > My mind haven't really changed on this topic. I understand why you want it > removed but given that the general rule of the kernel is to have backward > compatibility we can't just remove it. Dropping the old netlink interface > breaks userspace compatibility, even if it only is for deprecated tools like > lowpan-tools, etc. > > My take on it is that we live with it. Keeping it around but not extending > it. Maybe add a warning to dmesg iwhen some application uses the old > interface. > > Is it more code cleanliness/maintenance or bug reports that urge you to get > rid of it? This is one of the smallest problem, I can live with "live with it". But when I need to touch it because "nl802154" and "ieee802154" use the same INTERNAL interface, e.g. llsec. I don't want to handle backwards compatibility for that. This complete handling with the damnd backwards compatibility for a interface which is totally broken. (Yes I think [0] is one of the smallest issues). We getting stucked in developing of 802.15.4 to develop a better netlink interface (nl802154). The old interface I would describe as: - deprecated - broken - there exists no official userspace tool to handle everything, e.g. llsec, txpower, csma, etc... I want to remove it otherwise the branch will die again, because stupid handling a broken interface which nobody should use anymore. My argument is: Don't forget the 802.15.4 branch is still experimental, no maintainer acked this commit [1]. For EXPERIMENTAL things you can be sure that the UAPI interface will not be changed later and I would still say this branch is EXPERIMENTAL. I also have 3-4 things which we need to change inside the new interface (nl802154), because the deprecated already handle it wrong and I simple copy&pasted it... but it was wrong. Then handling of two UAPI's which need to access the INTERNAL api (cfg802154) will be mostly impossible. - Alex [0] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=114231 [1] https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/net/ieee802154?id=f4671a90c418b5aae14b61a9fc9d79c629403ca0 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wpan" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
