feature-removal-schedule.txt 4.2 KB

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  1. The following is a list of files and features that are going to be
  2. removed in the kernel source tree. Every entry should contain what
  3. exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing
  4. the work. When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also
  5. be removed from this file.
  6. ---------------------------
  7. What: devfs
  8. When: July 2005
  9. Files: fs/devfs/*, include/linux/devfs_fs*.h and assorted devfs
  10. function calls throughout the kernel tree
  11. Why: It has been unmaintained for a number of years, has unfixable
  12. races, contains a naming policy within the kernel that is
  13. against the LSB, and can be replaced by using udev.
  14. Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com>
  15. ---------------------------
  16. What: ACPI S4bios support
  17. When: May 2005
  18. Why: Noone uses it, and it probably does not work, anyway. swsusp is
  19. faster, more reliable, and people are actually using it.
  20. Who: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
  21. ---------------------------
  22. What: PCI Name Database (CONFIG_PCI_NAMES)
  23. When: July 2005
  24. Why: It bloats the kernel unnecessarily, and is handled by userspace better
  25. (pciutils supports it.) Will eliminate the need to try to keep the
  26. pci.ids file in sync with the sf.net database all of the time.
  27. Who: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
  28. ---------------------------
  29. What: io_remap_page_range() (macro or function)
  30. When: September 2005
  31. Why: Replaced by io_remap_pfn_range() which allows more memory space
  32. addressabilty (by using a pfn) and supports sparc & sparc64
  33. iospace as part of the pfn.
  34. Who: Randy Dunlap <rddunlap@osdl.org>
  35. ---------------------------
  36. What: RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
  37. When: December 2005
  38. Why: declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
  39. O_DIRECT can be used instead
  40. Who: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
  41. ---------------------------
  42. What: register_ioctl32_conversion() / unregister_ioctl32_conversion()
  43. When: April 2005
  44. Why: Replaced by ->compat_ioctl in file_operations and other method
  45. vecors.
  46. Who: Andi Kleen <ak@muc.de>, Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
  47. ---------------------------
  48. What: RCU API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
  49. When: April 2006
  50. Files: include/linux/rcupdate.h, kernel/rcupdate.c
  51. Why: Outside of Linux, the only implementations of anything even
  52. vaguely resembling RCU that I am aware of are in DYNIX/ptx,
  53. VM/XA, Tornado, and K42. I do not expect anyone to port binary
  54. drivers or kernel modules from any of these, since the first two
  55. are owned by IBM and the last two are open-source research OSes.
  56. So these will move to GPL after a grace period to allow
  57. people, who might be using implementations that I am not aware
  58. of, to adjust to this upcoming change.
  59. Who: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com>
  60. ---------------------------
  61. What: remove verify_area()
  62. When: July 2006
  63. Files: Various uaccess.h headers.
  64. Why: Deprecated and redundant. access_ok() should be used instead.
  65. Who: Jesper Juhl <juhl-lkml@dif.dk>
  66. ---------------------------
  67. What: IEEE1394 Audio and Music Data Transmission Protocol driver,
  68. Connection Management Procedures driver
  69. When: November 2005
  70. Files: drivers/ieee1394/{amdtp,cmp}*
  71. Why: These are incomplete, have never worked, and are better implemented
  72. in userland via raw1394 (see http://freebob.sourceforge.net/ for
  73. example.)
  74. Who: Jody McIntyre <scjody@steamballoon.com>
  75. ---------------------------
  76. What: raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN
  77. When: November 2005
  78. Why: Deprecated in favour of the new ioctl-based rawiso interface, which is
  79. more efficient. You should really be using libraw1394 for raw1394
  80. access anyway.
  81. Who: Jody McIntyre <scjody@steamballoon.com>
  82. ---------------------------
  83. What: register_serial/unregister_serial
  84. When: December 2005
  85. Why: This interface does not allow serial ports to be registered against
  86. a struct device, and as such does not allow correct power management
  87. of such ports. 8250-based ports should use serial8250_register_port
  88. and serial8250_unregister_port instead.
  89. Who: Russell King <rmk@arm.linux.org.uk>
  90. ---------------------------
  91. What: i2c sysfs name change: in1_ref, vid deprecated in favour of cpu0_vid
  92. When: November 2005
  93. Files: drivers/i2c/chips/adm1025.c, drivers/i2c/chips/adm1026.c
  94. Why: Match the other drivers' name for the same function, duplicate names
  95. will be available until removal of old names.
  96. Who: Grant Coady <gcoady@gmail.com>