linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/2] misc: remove CONFIG_MISC

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Date:	Mon, 5 Sep 2011 16:27:10 +0200
From:	Jean Delvare <khali@...ux-fr.org>
To:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>
Cc:	Luciano Coelho <coelho@...com>,
	Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...otime.net>,
	matti.j.aaltonen@...ia.com, johannes@...solutions.net,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, sameo@...ux.intel.com,
	mchehab@...radead.org, linux-media@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-omap@...r.kernel.org, Tony Lindgren <tony@...mide.com>,
	Grant Likely <grant.likely@...retlab.ca>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] misc: remove CONFIG_MISC_DEVICES

On Mon, 5 Sep 2011 16:19:35 +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Monday 05 September 2011, Jean Delvare wrote:
> > As said before, I'm not sure. Yes, it makes it easier to select misc
> > device drivers from Kconfig files. But it also makes it impossible to
> > deselect all misc device drivers at once.
> > 
> > I think that what we really need is the implementation in the Kconfig
> > system of smart selects, i.e. whenever an entry is selected, everything
> > it depends on gets selected as well. I don't know how feasible this is,
> > but if it can be done then I'd prefer this to your proposal.
> > 
> > Meanwhile, I am not in favor of applying your patch. The benefit is
> > relatively small IMHO (misc device drivers are rarely selected) and
> > there is one significant drawback.
> 
> Before I made this patch, I started a different one that added about
> a dozen 'select MISC_DEVICES' statements sprinkled all over the kernel
> in order to silence the Kconfig warnings.

Ah, OK. This certainly shifts the scales towards your side.

> The problem is that whenever you select that option, the misc directory
> suddenly becomes visible when it was disabled before, and things like
> 'oldconfig' will start asking about all other misc drivers as well.

Another good point. Maybe I'm convinced now.

> I think it would simply be more consistent to have it enabled all
> the time. Well, even better would be to move the bulk of the misc
> drivers to a proper location sorted by their subsystems. A lot of them
> should never have been merged in their current state IMHO.

As one of the offenders, I won't dare to comment on this ;)

> > That being said, I'm not the one to decide, so if you can convince
> > someone with more power (aka Andrew Morton)...
> 
> I think I should finally do what has been  talked about a few times and
> formally become the maintainer of drivers/char and drivers/misc ;-)
> 
> The problem is that I'm not actually a good maintainer, but maybe it's
> better to just have someone instead of falling back to Andrew or
> some random subsystem maintainer to send any patches for drivers/misc.

Certainly. And having a maintainer for these (non-)subsystems would
certainly help keep their size low, while the current trend is in the
other direction.

-- 
Jean Delvare
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