Hacking modversions

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:56:52 +0100, Fernando Herrera
<fherrera at onirica.com> wrote:
> But if Sally bought a webcam
> that is not supported by the standard kernel, should we say to her
> "Don't use linux, use Windows"?

Use what works best for you.  Is that such a hard guideline? If sally
finds relying on bill's experience works best.. then sally should rely
on bill's experience. If sally wants to do things for herself and
finds that works best then she should do that. If sally finds that
using specific model of webcam is supremely important to the exclusion
of other factors and can not rely on bill's experience to keep it
working in linux, she should do exactly what it takes to best fit her
needs even if its using windows. Though someone perhaps might decide
to befriend sally and buy her a webcam that works under linux without
the need for binary kernel modules... its a crazy crazy hypothetical
world afterall.

There really is no point in debating in this list, the pros and cons
of upstream kernel development's insistence on having the flexibility
of an undefined internal abi.  The fact that there is no stable abi is
a 'feature' of upstream kernel development.. a delibrate design
choice. Fighting that fact means consuming substantial developer time
that could be better spent working on bugs.

-jef