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timerfd() and system call review

Posted Aug 14, 2007 19:33 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: timerfd() and system call review by musicon
Parent article: timerfd() and system call review

Certainly having a system where syscalls *don't* automatically transition
out of beta state is a recipe for disaster: the lesson of
CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL is that a lot of them will simply never transition at
all :(

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Posted Aug 17, 2007 17:40 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I agree. If you have a "We're not committed to this and don't stand behind it yet" status, things stay in that status a long time and then there's no distinction between function in that status and not.

I think it should be like the 5-second rule for reclaiming food dropped on the floor. You have one release to change your mind and redo a user interface before it becomes set in stone.

The effectiveness of that would depend entirely upon how well the rule can be communicated to users.

timerfd() and system call review

Posted Aug 28, 2007 17:31 UTC (Tue) by efexis (guest, #26355) [Link]

So you have a ratification process, where the next (or next+1) release either ratifies the API and it becomes 'stable', alters it (and it remains 'experimental'), or removes it. This stops anything sitting in the experimental state for too long, as developers have to make the improvements or formalise it to keep it in the kernel.