From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: Linus Walleij Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2018 17:31:37 +0200 Message-ID: To: Peter Huewe , Geert Uytterhoeven Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Cc: Ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Deprecation / Removal of old hardware support List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Mon, Sep 10, 2018 at 4:04 PM Peter Huewe wrote: > one topic I would like to discuss is: when is it time to remove support for old hardware? > Should we support as much hardware as possible forever, or does it make sense to cut down the support? > If so, when would be appropriate? I've been thinking a lot about it. I just recently prepared a talk on the subject. My thinking has been something along the lines: if it has active users we don't delete it, by the same token that we don't destroy kernel interfaces that have active users. Of course the definition of "users" is a bit complex there. In our opinion the "users" are those who regularly compile new kernels and test them, finds regressions, bisects problems and generally do a good job in the community. Not ranting bloggers. By this reasoning it is absolutely forbidden to propose something like to delete arch/m68k (the last CPU M68060 produced in 1994 IIUC) as long as these maintainers put in an honest effort to keep running that kernel on increasingly aging and hard to obtain hardware like Apollo/Domain or Amiga 4000. One day the last m68k users stops responding to regressions and then it can be deleted. My ARMv4 is another example, but I can point at new devices beging deployed as we speak, using that ISA, even though it is from 1999. So it has many active users (and maintainers). (CC:ing the m68k maintainer, who is an awesome guy.) Yours, Linus Walleij