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Date:      Mon, 24 Feb 2003 02:39:33 -0800
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        Marcel Moolenaar <marcel@xcllnt.net>
Cc:        freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: [RFC] splitting of conf/NOTES
Message-ID:  <3E59F665.DCD54EAF@mindspring.com>
References:  <20030224001644.GA67255@dragon.nuxi.com> <20030224120037.D4403-100000@gamplex.bde.org> <20030224023118.GD67312@dragon.nuxi.com> <3E59E8F4.884C9160@mindspring.com> <20030224100336.GB21088@athlon.pn.xcllnt.net>

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Marcel Moolenaar wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 01:42:12AM -0800, Terry Lambert wrote:
> > What they should probably *get* is per machine exceptions, via
> > "nodevice", which are then correctable on a case by case basis,
> > instead of having to be corrected globally for all the platforms
> > all at once.
> 
> Isn't that's like voting for spam because people can install
> filters? or like an opt out mailing list: remove yourself if
> you think you're exceptional?
> Isn't it also more related to kernel config files where we list
> devices when we want to add support for them, not to list devices
> we don't want to support?

No, it's closer to NOT_FOR_ARCHS and ONLY_FOR_ARCHS in the ports
system Makefiles, such that ports are allowed to be broken for
particular architectures, where the port maintainer has no way
of verifying that they actually work.

In fact, it's exactly like that, except instead of a port maintainer,
we're talking about a driver maintainer.

I think people need to fact the fact that i386 is the FreeBSD
reference platform, and all other platforms are second class
citizens.

The onus of supporting a port (or a driver) on an architecture that
the port (or driver) maintainer doesn't have readily available to
them for testing needs to be on the proponents for that architecture.


PS:	The whole idea config adding/removing support for devices
	is really very bogus, and has more to do with lacking ELF
	section attribution for code, data, probe code, probe data,
	paging path, non-paging path, etc. (all of which Microsoft
	readily supports in their OSs, via PELDR, and which GCC can
	also support through section attribution), than it has to
	do with any real technical argument to the contrary.  The
	"config" program should die.

PPS:	Both Julian and Poul have spoken eloquently and at length
	about not varying the size of kernel structures based on
	compilation options in the config files.  Their arguments
	are made on the basis of module options not matching kernel
	options, but the same argument applies to the ability to
	both statically and dynamically link the same object files,
	and the ability to use an ELF archiver to add/remove modules
	in an already compiled kernel (the main effort that this
	entails is editing the linker set contents for SYSINIT()
	created linker sets; if they are sectioned properly, then
	you don't care: you just regenerate them).  The config
	program should die.

PPPS:	The config program should die.

-- Terry

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