Linux-kernel mailing list archive 1999-36,: Re: Re: config-menus

# Re: Re: config-menus

Gerard Roudier (groudier@club-internet.fr)
Wed, 8 Sep 1999 23:46:04 +0200 (MET DST)

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On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Jens Benecke wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 08, 1999 at 02:26:26AM +0200, David Weinehall wrote:
>
> > > > o A "Prompt for drivers/code flagged DANGEROUS" option in the
> > > > code-maturity section that is conditional depending on EXPERIMENTAL
> > > What is the difference between experimental/dangerous, except the
> > > latter scares people.
> > That was kind of the idea... There is a reason for flagging code
> > DANGEROUS. Only people who really doesn't care if their dogs die, their
> > grandmas get abducted by aliens, their disks crashed and their screens
> > burned out enables such code, while many wannabe hackers enables
> > EXPERIMENTAL code.
>
> And could you please put _exactly_ that in the "Help" menu for the
> CONFIG_DANGEROUS switch. I think there should be some humour in such boring
> things as configuring a new kernel. ;)

Any software is DANGEROUS for the reason that it contains bugs. Even a
known bug may have catastrophic effects in some situations. So, you
cannot expect unknown bugs to be more kind. :-)
The only relevant information could be some status that reflects the tests
that have been done, tells about the software being stable or still in
heavy development, the number of systems that use the software with
success, etc ..., but this information would be very complex to maintain
for each kernel module.

In my opinion, the EXPERIMENTAL status that warns user about code that a
software still need testings or is still under heavy development is just
fine and enough.

Counting the number of file systems a software eats every second will not
help at all, in my opinion. ;-)

Gérard.

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