On 02.05.22 17:10, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
On Mon, 02 May 2022 08:29:03 -0600 Jonathan Corbet wrote:Jakub Kicinski <kuba@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:Thomas suggested that it may be nice to create some form of a record for drivers which were retired from the tree. I think a code-centric equivalent of CREDITS could be a good idea. Does such a record already exist somewhere? If not any thoughts on creating a file storing (Kconfig, short description, commit which removed the driver)? E.g. K: DMASCC D: Hamradio high-speed (DMA) SCC driver for AX.25. Driver supported D: Ottawa PI/PI2, Paccomm/Gracilis D: PackeTwin, and S5SCC/DMA boards. C: 865e2eb08f51So what is the purpose for this file? And more to the point, I guess: is there a need for it to be strictly machine-readable? If the objective is to remember our history to minimize our chances of repeating it, something more prose-oriented might work better.To be honest I found the existence of the CREDITS file useful when removing stale MAINTAINERS entries. A move seems less hostile than a erasure (using a very broad definition of "move" in case of drivers). Anything that makes people feel more at ease when I remove their driver would be helpful. The only practical (i.e. not armchair-psychology-based) use I can think of is if someone is about to sit down and write a new driver they may grep the tree for the name of the HW, and they may find the graveyard entry. So I think listing the exact HW supported is useful. That said as I'm writing this I'm reminded how old the hypothetical HW in the previous sentence likely is. I used the machine-readable format following CREDITS. I figured CREDITS serves no practical purpose either today, in hindsight that's a bit ahistoric.
In case something like this is wanted, maybe it should not be limited to drivers? I think listing desupport of features (driver, arch, syscall, fs, whatever) with kernel version and maybe commit would be better. Juergen
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