netdev - Re: [PATCH] net/, drivers/net/ , missing EXPERIMENTAL in menus

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Date:	Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:06:33 -0400
From:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
To:	"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@...dspring.com>
CC:	Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...otime.net>,
	Simon Arlott <simon@...e.lp0.eu>, sam@...nborg.org,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Stefan Richter <stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de>,
	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...sta.de>,
	Gabriel C <crazy@...pmylinux.org>, netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] net/, drivers/net/ , missing EXPERIMENTAL in menus

Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Aug 2007, Randy Dunlap wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:05:57 +0100 Simon Arlott wrote:
>>
>>> On 19/07/07 17:19, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, Randy Dunlap wrote:
>>>>> I think that Stefan means a patch to the kconfig source code,
>>>>> not the the Kconfig files.  Good luck.  I'd still like to see it.
>>>> yes, i understand what he wanted now.  as a first step (that
>>>> theoretically shouldn't change any behaviour), i'd patch the Kconfig
>>>> structure to add a new attribute ("maturity") which would be allowed
>>>> to be set to *exactly one* of a pre-defined set of values (say,
>>>> OBSOLETE, DEPRECATED, EXPERIMENTAL, and STILLBLEEDING).  and that's
>>>> it, nothing more.
>>>>
>>>> don't try to do anything with any of that just yet, just add the
>>>> infrastructure to support the (optional) association of a maturity
>>>> level with a config option.  that's step one.
>>> What about something like this? I'm not sure if the addition to sym_init
>>> is desirable... I also had to prefix _ to the name for now otherwise it
>>> conflicts badly with the current symbols. It probably should stop
>>> "depends on _BROKEN" etc. too.
> 
> i'm sure i'm going to get shouted down here, but i really disagree
> with "BROKEN" being considered a "maturity level".  IMHO, things like
> EXPERIMENTAL, DEPRECATED and OBSOLETE represent maturity levels, for
> what i think are obvious reasons.
> 
> something like BROKEN, though, has *nothing* to do with maturity.  a
> feature can be any of those maturity levels, and simultaneously be
> BROKEN.  i consider BROKEN to be what i call a "status", and different
> status levels might be the default of normal, or KIND_OF_FLAKY or
> TOTALLY_BORKED -- that's where BROKEN would fit in.

BROKEN is definitely a maturity level.  A more accurate description 
would be BITROTTING perhaps.  The code in question has passed through 
bleeding -> experimental -> stable, and come out the other side.

In contrast, OBSOLETE and DEPRECATED reflect high-level status not code 
quality/maturity.

	Jeff



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