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Sender: Guenter Roeck <groeck7@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 10:54:33 -0700
From: Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>
To: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
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Cc: boris.ostrovsky@oracle.com, david.vrabel@citrix.com,
	ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org,
	Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] Topic: Removal of code that is still in use
 by users but there is a better code.
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On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 01:19:12PM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On 06/10/2014 01:12 PM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> > Hey,
> > 
> > I would want to propose a topic on removing code in Linux that
> > users are using - but they are doing it less and less and it
> > mostly is tied in with older hardware. Specifically how to do
> > this transition properly - and if we want to define some checklist
> > /policy to do it via.
> > 
> 
> I second this.  Right now deprecation is entirely ad hoc... usually in
> the form "this hasn't compiled for X releases and noone noticed", which
> makes it hard to do *controlled* deprecation...
> 
That is a bit different to "users are using but less and less". Personally 
I would not mind leaving code in the kernel as long as it is used, but
it would be great if we had some rule that a file/driver which did
not compile for X releases (pick a preferred number for X - two years 
worth of releases ?) can be removed.

Guenter