Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Why Linux is doomed (was: Re: FENRIS (nwfs) 1.4.2 Source Code Available) | Date | Thu, 24 Jun 1999 12:42:18 +0200 (MEST) | From | (Rogier Wolff) |
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leitner@convergence.de wrote:
[fat doesn't compile... ]
> Sorry, but if the second most frequently used file system does not > compile, then don't release it. I am not counting the pseudo file > systems proc and pts here, obviously.
Felix,
For you (*) and many other people, x.y.z kernels with y an odd number are NOT RELEASED. You can access them in much the same way as you can access "released" (y is even) kernels, but don't be fooled. They are not released!
The goal of 2.3.7 was to test the page-cache (whatever) changes, and to be able to test them, one filesystem (ext2) was updated to talk to the new interface. If this wouldn't work at all, then the changes would have to be reverted. And if the other filesystems had been modified by then, the work would have been for nothing.
Programming is a tricky job. The good people know when to break interfaces. Linus sure does. If I have a function
doit (struct mystruct *ms, int flag)
where flag indicates wether or not to do something. But after a while I notice that besides the "doit or not" I want more possibilities. And the most logical way to do it is to have a "flags" argument. The problem is that what used to be "0" now is a flag, and what used to be flag = 1, is now "none of the flags set". I could just rewrite the prototype
doit (struct mystruct *ms, int flags)
but that would mean that everything still compiles, but is wrong. If I change the function name to "doit2" or something like that, we get the compiler to warn us where stuff needs fixing. Much better than not working at run-time.
I got a tarball of commercial sources yesterday. I made sure that it compiles without warnings with gcc -Wall. I fixed about 100 little problems. Just made the warning go away. And one of them was NOT minor. A plain bug. And the compiler told me where to look. I did NOT read all 65k source code lines....
Roger.
(*) You've clearly demonstrated by now that development kernels are not for you.
-- ** R.E.Wolff@BitWizard.nl ** http://www.BitWizard.nl/ ** +31-15-2137555 ** *-- BitWizard writes Linux device drivers for any device you may have! --* ------ Microsoft SELLS you Windows, Linux GIVES you the whole house ------
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