Re: [PATCH] PM: Hide CONFIG_PM from users

On 02/07/11 04:22, Mark Brown wrote:

It is very rare to find a current system which is both sufficiently
resource constrained to want to compile out power management support
and sufficiently power insensitive to be able to tolerate doing so.
Since having the configuration option requires non-zero effort to
maintain, with ifdefery in most drivers, but it is used with vanishing
rarity it is simpler to just remove the option.

Proof by assertion that it is used with vanishing rarity.

Begin doing so by hiding it from users - this should attract complaints
from any active users. The option is left disabled for the IA64 Ski
simulator which is a partial simulator for IA64 systems mostly missing
device support. This is a very limited use case which is unlikely to
ever want to enable most drivers.

That is not a good method of getting feedback from users.

 1) It immediately removes the ability to have CONFIG_PM undefined,
    without first giving active users a chance to provide feedback.

 2) The removal of that ability is not obvious ("make oldconfig" does
    not say anything about CONFIG_PM).  It is easy to overlook a
    config change that happens silently.

 3) The active users may not move to a newer version of the kernel
    that contains this change until after it has been decided that
    there are no users of the config option since no one complained
    in a timely manner.

Would it be appropriate to use Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt
if this truly will be removed?

-Frank