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Upstream first policyUpstream first policyPosted Jun 3, 2010 12:56 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1)In reply to: Upstream first policy by epa Parent article: A suspend blockers post-mortem Yes it's important to the users...unless you assume that all of those users want to be running something other than Linux in five years. Without a focus on maintainability you will shortly have a kernel which nobody wants to run.
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Upstream first policy Posted Jun 3, 2010 13:20 UTC (Thu) by michel (subscriber, #10186) [Link]
Not sure who you consider the user in this case. If it's google (as the user/consumer of the kernel), I can agree with the comment. If it's a consumer using an android based phone, I think the vast majority of them could care less if it's linux under the hood.
Upstream first policy Posted Jun 3, 2010 13:42 UTC (Thu) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
Indeed, the user is Google in this case, just like they use Linux in many other places. If Google starts seeing a decline in Linux quality, they will either fork or switch. And to some extend, developing wavelocks behind closed doors could be considered a kind of fork (though on a small scale).
Upstream first policy Posted Jun 3, 2010 14:41 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
I bet it would be rather the opposite. If Google starts to see that Linux does not have the _functionality_ they want, they will fork or switch.
Why do you think they are _not_ using some of the BSDs?
Upstream first policy Posted Jun 3, 2010 15:45 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]
Users actually care a whole lot about maintainability of the code if it affects the quality of the maintenance that gets done. They'll be unhappy if apps they've gotten for their phones start misbehaving when they either upgrade the OS or get a new phone. This comes down to the question of whether the APIs that the apps use can be maintained across changes to the underlying system, and has implications for whether your favorite third-party IM program drains your battery when you're idle online or alternatively stops exchanging audio if you don't touch anything during a voice chat.
If Google's using a design that hasn't passed muster, and they eventually switch to a better design, and the original API bitrots, that ends up impacting users, especially ones who have the idea that they can buy an Android phone with the expectation that any program that they come to like will keep working forever.
Upstream first policy Posted Jun 3, 2010 14:56 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
Agreed, a focus on maintainability is important. But which is more maintainable? Merging existing, working, widely deployed code - or forcing developers like Google to stay out-of-tree for five years?
My point is that the fact that some code is already being used on millions of devices and works *now* should carry some weight, even in assessing future maintainability. (It's much more likely that little-used features will suffer code rot, no matter what their conceptual purity.) At the moment it appears to get no weight at all.
Upstream first policy Posted Jun 3, 2010 16:54 UTC (Thu) by cry_regarder (subscriber, #50545) [Link]
Of course it got weight...tons of weight. If it hadn't we wouldn't be talking about this now.
Also, the "millions of devices" is a red herring. It is just a handful of different devices, all of the same class. The kernel developers need a solution that works for a vast range of devices over the long haul.
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