Date:   Wed, 24 Apr 2019 13:48:44 +0200
From:   Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>
To:     Paul Bolle <pebolle@...cali.nl>
Cc:     Karsten Keil <isdn@...ux-pingi.de>,
        Networking <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        isdn4linux@...tserv.isdn4linux.de,
        Holger Schurig <holgerschurig@...glemail.com>,
        Tilman Schmidt <tilman@...p.cc>,
        Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        gigaset307x-common@...ts.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/5] isdn: deprecate non-mISDN drivers

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 10:48 AM Paul Bolle <pebolle@...cali.nl> wrote:
>
> Arnd Bergmann schreef op di 23-04-2019 om 17:11 [+0200]:
> > When isdn4linux came up in the context of another patch series, I
> > remembered that we had discussed removing it a while ago.
> >
> > It turns out that the suggestion from Karsten Keil wa to remove I4L
> > in 2018 after the last public ISDN networks are shut down. This has
> > happened now (with a very small number of exceptions), so I guess it's
> > time to try again.
>
> The Dutch consumer grade (voice and data) ISDN network will be shut down on
> September 1st of this year. I'm not sure what other networks there still are,
> worldwide. Does someone know of an overview somewhere?

I did some research when I created the series but could not find a
definite list. All provides that I /could/ find seem to list the end-of-life
date as either 2018 or 2019. Deutsche Telekom was by far the biggest
provider and tried to finally shut it down in 2018, but apparently there
are still a small number of households that are fighting the change
to IP-only connections.

[side rant: I do understand why -- when my parents were forced to
change, their DSL speed dropped from barely usable (1024kb/s)
to completely useless (256kb/s), and Deutsche Telekom refused
to let them use an LTE home connection instead even though that is
offered to half their neighbors in the same village and works fine
in their house. They now have to pay for a DSL connection they
can't use and an expensive handset LTE contract that is capped at
10GB per month]

In Germany, Vodafone still offers physical ISDN lines until 2022,
but only for business customers, and they try to get them to
switch as well.

> > CAPI in turn is not quite as obsolete, but as I have been unable to find
> > any users, I would suggest moving it to drivers/staging while we
> > figure out if anyone is using it. If not, it can then be removed
> > as well. If it turns out that there are users that are on 5.x kernels
> > or need to update to them, we can decide to leave parts of it for
> > longer, or move them back.
>
> (Has any driver ever returned to drivers proper after exile into
> drivers/staging?)

Greg would know. I assume not, but that would be just because
everyone who moved drivers into staging was guessing correctly
that there were actually no users.

> > If anyone is still using isdn4linux and CAPI with modern kernels, please
> > speak up now.
>
> I'll try to test gigaset's drivers (in CAPI mode) until 5.2 is released (end
> of July/early August). Whether that will be under staging or not is
> unimportant. I have only very little evidence of people actually using the
> code. That is unsurprising: for data ISDN is now expensive and really slow.
> About the only things actually usable are "git fetch" and the like. So that's
> what I test.

Sounds good, thanks!

> > [1] https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/8484861/#17900371
> >
> > Arnd Bergmann (5):
> >   isdn: gigaset: remove i4l support
> >   isdn: remove hisax driver
> >   isdn: remove isdn4linux
> >   isdn: hdlc: move into mISDN
> >   isdn: move capi drivers to staging
>
> For some reason 5/5 didn't hit my INBOX.

I saw that some mails got rejected by your mail server.
https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20190423151143.464992-12-arnd@arndb.de/
has the full mail.

        arnd

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