Wanna give me a hand debunking this?
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
Mon Nov 26 23:31:53 UTC 2007
Jeff Spaleta wrote:
>> The kernel's job is to provide a stable hardware-independent interface.
>
> I'm pretty sure the the kernel's upstream developers don't agree with
> you on that.
> A stable ABI hasn't been a "feature" of upstream kernel development...ever.
On the user side it is - otherwise you can't come close to posix or any
other standard that applications are developed to.
>> It doesn't have to keep changing to do that, particularly on hardware
>> that doesn't change, although it does need security/bugfix updates. The
>> concepts of open()/read()/write()/ioctl() never change. Applications, on
>> the other hand, are always being improved.
>
> Are you calling the development that the upstream kernel developers
> do... not improvements? I think you just insulted the upstream kernel
> developers.
They are improvements to whatever extent they enable new hardware to be
used, but that is very much irrelevant on an existing, working box. I
don't mind installing a new version when I get a new machine that needs
it. Isn't it more of an insult to say that yesterday's kernel isn't
usable? Or last week's, or last year's? I think mostly the same people
wrote them all - although they used to sensibly insulate the users from
their changes by supplying stable and development versions,
understanding that changes will likely break things.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
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