Re: config(5) break down

[David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 02:49:37PM +0000, Andrew Doran wrote:
 > > I *do* think it's a useful datapoint to note that sun2, pmax, algor, etc.
 > > are never, ever downloaded any more.
 > 
 > Right, and these dead ports must be euthanized.  The mountain of
 > unused device drivers and core kernel code is a signficant hinderance to
 > people working in the kernel. 

Speaking from the point of view of repeatedly touching every namei
call anywhere in the kernel... I'd have to disagree. Sure, it'd go
faster if there weren't a pile of legacy binary compat implementations
or if we removed all the mostly-unused fses, but if I wanted a toy
kernel I already have a pile of those in the office. Most of the
issues that the "dead" ports or fses trigger are real design or
structural problems that would be only masked, not resolved, by
removing that code. Supporting all the random bells and whistles that
e.g. compat_svr4 wants from namei is part of doing it correctly, and
having the correct infrastructure in place that can support these
things is important because the need/desire/demand will come along
again; it always does. For example, the $ORIGIN thing in ld.elf_so is
actually the same as one of the annoying cases in (IIRC) compat_svr4...

I know we don't exactly see eye to eye on these issues but perhaps we
can reach some kind of middle ground?

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost