Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:19:52 -0700 (PDT) | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Subject | Re: [git patch] free_irq() fixes |
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On Wed, 23 Apr 2008, Jeff Garzik wrote: > > When drivers make assumptions about system irq numbering, particularly on x86, > IMO the situation is fragile.
And when people make changes to long-standing and stable infrastructure, the situation also gets fragile.
The fact is, stability of interfaces is a really worthy goal in itself. Making a change for its own sake is not a good thing. This fixes *nothing*, and the driver changes I objected to I objected to because they were ugly as sin.
And I want to point out that your patches made it *much* uglier.
So "cleanup" it sure as hell wasn't. That irq number may not be worth all that much in itself, but it has no subtle implementation problems (we _need_ that irq number for registration and irq handler lookup anyway, so it is meaningful from a driver perspective, and is well-defined from a irq core standpoint as well).
I don't mind cleanups, but this is "churn". Change for its own sake. If it doesn't lead to any _improvement_, it's pointless.
If drivers don't need it, let them ignore it. But let them ignore it in ways that work across versions, and in ways that don't cause ridiculous and ugly work-arounds for when they do want it (even if it's just for a printk() or similar).
Linus
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