Re: Linux 2.4 future

[Peter C. Norton]

On Tue, Dec 02, 2003 at 09:18:00PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 02, 2003 at 12:10:40PM -0800, Peter C. Norton wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 02, 2003 at 12:54:54AM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2003-12-01 at 22:36, Peter C. Norton wrote:
> > > `
> > > > encouraging the distros to get behind autofs4 (hint hint, redhat,
> > > > hint).
> > > 
> > > I suspect you'll have a really hard time finding ANY distro that still
> > > wants to actively develop new products on a 2.4 codebase.
> > 
> > Perhaps, but some rather large customers of AS2.1, would like it if
> > redhat could deliver the large outstanding automounting features for
> > their (mainly sun) environments.  Since these environments resist
> > change, upgrading a kernel to include a newer autofs4 is more likely
> > than upgrading the whole system.
> 
> and putting a feature into 2.4.23 is going to help/change that... how ?

The autofs4 kernel code is already in the mainline kernel and in
redhat's AS kernels.  However:

1) In the mainline its not complete (no direct mounts) 
2) In redhats AS kernels its not supported or complete.  A newer version 
   seems to only make sense.

Putting an upgrade to autofs4 in the mainline kernel once its proven
would give users the option of having a much more feature-complete and
un-broken automounter to use.  If its not hurting anything else then
why leave broken code in the kernel?  

Please correct me if I'm making too big a leap, because I have a
thought.  It seems that new hardware gets this sort of treatment - new
drivers for a NIC, scsi, or FC card will be included in a stable
series because with out it some subsystem of a computer "doesn't
work" completely.  What makes this case different?

-Peter

-- 
The 5 year plan:
In five years we'll make up another plan.
Or just re-use this one.

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