From: Terry Dawson (uqqxqht@kerailya.tunkki.fi)
Date: Wed Feb 02 2000 - 00:21:47 EET
Jan Wasserbauer wrote:
> > The correct thing to do is slowly phasing it out. Keep it around for at
> > least one unstable and stable kernel series and printk() a warning that it
> > will go away. And take care that when it is gone old applications will
> > die gracefully (_not_ randomly core dump).
>
> I'm not a big fan of keeping old stuff. We now have development kernel.
> When 2.4 comes out I suppose people to upgrade all their stuff.
> On the other hand it is nice to be compatible.
Jan,
I would guess that a large percentage of people on this list are still
running Linux 2.0.* based systems. Many of the Amateur Radio Linux
fraternity are Amateur Radio first, Linux second and they are less
inclined to routinely follow updates in code, especially operating
system, just because it's a good thing to do. It takes time and effort
to keep up to date, and as a result you'll find people that will tend to
track application software more rigourously than operating system
software.
As much as it's a little untidy to keep legacy code and interfaces
around, I think it's necessary to wear a certain amount of backward
compatability and not be too cavalier if we want Linux to be viewed as
something generally usable.
Terry
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