David> On Fri, Nov 06, 1998 at 10:56:38PM +0100, Jes Sorensen wrote:
>> Well the result of this is that for other architectures such as
>> the m68k; some people (can't remember the names off hand, sorry)
>> have started to implement driver for PCMCIA devices (mainly NE2K
>> Ethernet and 16c550 serial) totally independant of the existing
>> PCMCIA subsystem. Some of these drivers have now been included into
>> the standard kernel.
>>
>> I asume this is because these guys don't know about the current
>> PCMCIA code and where to get it. IMHO keeping PCMCIA out of the
>> kernel is a pain and I would prefer to see it go in together with
>> the rest of the strange bus architectures we support these days.
David> I have noticed the m68k "net/apne" driver. I don't know its
David> history, but they're certainly aware of my package, because
David> they've apparently copied parts of my header files (without
David> attribution). The driver appears to support only a small
David> subset of NE2000 compatible PCMCIA cards (maybe a subset of
David> one).
Whats the problem, it is supposedly GPL anyway! Except for the fact
that it is good behavior to credit someone for it there shouldn't be
any problem with it. Afaik the apne driver supports a subset because
the PCMCIA port in the Amiga 600+1200 is not fully PCMCIA 2 compliant
on the hardware level and not all cards will work.
David> As for other architectures, my PCMCIA package is already being
David> used on the alpha and powerpc platforms.
Still doesn't change the fact that it is a pain for someone making a
modification to the kernel which affects all/other subsystems to get
everything done right. I don't want to apply a large PCMCIA patch on
top of my CVS tree if I cannot send it all off to Linus when I am
finished fixing all the bugs.
I can understand why some people prefer to keep other submodules which
the developer(s) do not consider ready for prime time out of the
kernel. I can see something like the ISDN subsystem (though I am not
claiming it is in such a state, just using it as an example) could be
left out as it doesn't really affect other subsystems, but PCMCIA is
bus and parts of the drivers in the current kernel will need to know
about it.
Jes
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