No more kernel-source(code) ??? (was: rawhide report: 20040623 changes)

[Jeremy Katz]

On Wed, 2004-06-23 at 16:01 -0700, alan wrote:
> It is going to make life more difficult for those who need to modify their 
> kernel for whatever reason.

The same argument could be made for every other package we ship.

> This does not appear to be a useful change.  It makes it more difficult to 
> get to the source code, not less.
>
> Why was this change made?  It seems counter-productive to me.

It makes the kernel just like _every other package in the distribution_.
There's no reason why building a custom kernel should be considered to
be any different from building, eg, a custom glibc.  The "it's always
been that way" argument doesn't really fly.  Especially since once you
understand making the changes from within the package, that's actually
easier, more reproducible and makes your life easier for maintaining the
changes you want to make over the long term (or even in working towards
getting those changes included in the upstream kernel source.

Jeremy