dab363f938
Here's the big staging tree pull request for 3.19-rc1. We continued to delete more lines than were added, always a good thing, but not at a huge rate this release, only about 70k lines removed overall mostly from removing the horrid bcm driver. Lots of normal staging driver cleanups and fixes all over the place, well over a thousand of them, the shortlog shows all the horrid details. The "contentious" thing here is the movement of the Android binder code out of staging into the "real" part of the kernel. This is code that has been stable for a few years now and is working as-is in the tens of millions of devices with no issues. Yes, the code is horrid, and the userspace api leaves a lot to be desired, but it's not going to change due to legacy issues that we have no control over. Because so many devices and companies rely on this, and the code is stable, might as well promote it out of staging. This was all discussed at the Linux Plumbers conference, and everyone participating agreed that this was the best way forward. There is work happening to replace the binder code with something new that is happening right now, but I don't expect to see the results of that work for another year at the earliest. If that ever happens, and Android switches over to it, I'll gladly remove this version. As for maintainers, I'll be glad to maintain this code, I've been doing it for the past few years with no problems. I'll send a MAINTAINERS entry for it before 3.19-final is out, still need to talk to the Google developers about if they are willing to help with it or not, last I checked they were, which was good. All of these patches have been in linux-next for a while with no reported issues. Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iEYEABECAAYFAlSPICkACgkQMUfUDdst+yksdwCfSLE9VUy1o2sAPDRe+J3bQced EWEAoL3RtnejKbo5tHS2IT69pLrwiIDS =YXyM -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Merge tag 'staging-3.19-rc1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging Pull staging driver updates from Greg KH: "Here's the big staging tree pull request for 3.19-rc1. We continued to delete more lines than were added, always a good thing, but not at a huge rate this release, only about 70k lines removed overall mostly from removing the horrid bcm driver. Lots of normal staging driver cleanups and fixes all over the place, well over a thousand of them, the shortlog shows all the horrid details. The "contentious" thing here is the movement of the Android binder code out of staging into the "real" part of the kernel. This is code that has been stable for a few years now and is working as-is in the tens of millions of devices with no issues. Yes, the code is horrid, and the userspace api leaves a lot to be desired, but it's not going to change due to legacy issues that we have no control over. Because so many devices and companies rely on this, and the code is stable, might as well promote it out of staging. This was all discussed at the Linux Plumbers conference, and everyone participating agreed that this was the best way forward. There is work happening to replace the binder code with something new that is happening right now, but I don't expect to see the results of that work for another year at the earliest. If that ever happens, and Android switches over to it, I'll gladly remove this version. As for maintainers, I'll be glad to maintain this code, I've been doing it for the past few years with no problems. I'll send a MAINTAINERS entry for it before 3.19-final is out, still need to talk to the Google developers about if they are willing to help with it or not, last I checked they were, which was good. All of these patches have been in linux-next for a while with no reported issues" * tag 'staging-3.19-rc1' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging: (1382 commits) Staging: slicoss: Fix long line issues in slicoss.c staging: rtl8712: remove unnecessary else after return staging: comedi: change some printk calls to pr_err staging: rtl8723au: hal: Removed the extra semicolon lustre: Deletion of unnecessary checks before three function calls staging: lustre: fix sparse warnings: static function declaration staging: lustre: fixed sparse warnings related to static declarations staging: unisys: remove duplicate header staging: unisys: remove unneeded structure staging: ft1000 : replace __attribute ((__packed__) with __packed drivers: staging: rtl8192e: Include "asm/unaligned.h" instead of "access_ok.h" in "rtl819x_BAProc.c" Drivers:staging:rtl8192e: Fixed checkpatch warning Drivers:staging:clocking-wizard: Added a newline staging: clocking-wizard: check for a valid clk_name pointer staging: rtl8723au: Hal_InitPGData() avoid unnecessary typecasts staging: rtl8723au: _DisableAnalog(): Avoid zero-init variables unnecessarily staging: rtl8723au: Remove unnecessary wrapper _ResetDigitalProcedure1() staging: rtl8723au: _ResetDigitalProcedure1_92C() reduce code obfuscation staging: rtl8723au: Remove unnecessary wrapper _DisableRFAFEAndResetBB() staging: rtl8723au: _DisableRFAFEAndResetBB8192C(): Reduce code obfuscation ... |
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README
This directory attempts to document the ABI between the Linux kernel and userspace, and the relative stability of these interfaces. Due to the everchanging nature of Linux, and the differing maturity levels, these interfaces should be used by userspace programs in different ways. We have four different levels of ABI stability, as shown by the four different subdirectories in this location. Interfaces may change levels of stability according to the rules described below. The different levels of stability are: stable/ This directory documents the interfaces that the developer has defined to be stable. Userspace programs are free to use these interfaces with no restrictions, and backward compatibility for them will be guaranteed for at least 2 years. Most interfaces (like syscalls) are expected to never change and always be available. testing/ This directory documents interfaces that are felt to be stable, as the main development of this interface has been completed. The interface can be changed to add new features, but the current interface will not break by doing this, unless grave errors or security problems are found in them. Userspace programs can start to rely on these interfaces, but they must be aware of changes that can occur before these interfaces move to be marked stable. Programs that use these interfaces are strongly encouraged to add their name to the description of these interfaces, so that the kernel developers can easily notify them if any changes occur (see the description of the layout of the files below for details on how to do this.) obsolete/ This directory documents interfaces that are still remaining in the kernel, but are marked to be removed at some later point in time. The description of the interface will document the reason why it is obsolete and when it can be expected to be removed. removed/ This directory contains a list of the old interfaces that have been removed from the kernel. Every file in these directories will contain the following information: What: Short description of the interface Date: Date created KernelVersion: Kernel version this feature first showed up in. Contact: Primary contact for this interface (may be a mailing list) Description: Long description of the interface and how to use it. Users: All users of this interface who wish to be notified when it changes. This is very important for interfaces in the "testing" stage, so that kernel developers can work with userspace developers to ensure that things do not break in ways that are unacceptable. It is also important to get feedback for these interfaces to make sure they are working in a proper way and do not need to be changed further. How things move between levels: Interfaces in stable may move to obsolete, as long as the proper notification is given. Interfaces may be removed from obsolete and the kernel as long as the documented amount of time has gone by. Interfaces in the testing state can move to the stable state when the developers feel they are finished. They cannot be removed from the kernel tree without going through the obsolete state first. It's up to the developer to place their interfaces in the category they wish for it to start out in. Notable bits of non-ABI, which should not under any circumstances be considered stable: - Kconfig. Userspace should not rely on the presence or absence of any particular Kconfig symbol, in /proc/config.gz, in the copy of .config commonly installed to /boot, or in any invocation of the kernel build process. - Kernel-internal symbols. Do not rely on the presence, absence, location, or type of any kernel symbol, either in System.map files or the kernel binary itself. See Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt.