Proposal: "debug" branch for the kernel

[Andy Green]

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Somebody in the thread at some point said:

|> When I say, "let's have a talk about this auto resume thing and how that
|> can be leveraged by the various levels", we do not have that discussion,
|> we have "I have got a C compiler in front of me and I will make a daemon
|> right now to 'solve' what I think is the problem".

Let me preface this by noting another nice feature of FOSS development
is the free advice that turns up in ones inbox, often enumerating the
ways one sucks, but not always.  I heard it wasn't always anyway.

| Yeah, thats 'coz your stacks are all flat.  Wouldn't be this way if you
| had a single person in charge of making the final distribution-specific
| (that means policy, not just technology) decisions about how best to
| integrate these various levels in your stack in a way to suit the user.

Reality is all kinds of decisions cross the boundaries in messy ways and
the guys that know the truth at each level need to talk.  For example
choices of chips that can suit some overall plan can impact power,
possibility to even make functional and reliable kernel driver.  Muxes
are constantly threatening to be designed in by hardware centric guys
for whom it is a no-brainer, and destroying reliable operation
everywhere else in software.

Stuff has to get floated and discussed, no matter how comforting the
idea of a leather-clad jackbooted "all wise" Design Sadist may feel to
some folks.  As I said I don't think anybody is "all wise" on all the
layers we deal with.

Having said that, a sane spec about final functional expectations never
did anyone any harm, so we have a framework for where we are headed.

|> It's a way of thinking about it, but I got choked on "the kernel needs
|> to do what its told to do by devices", it's as if there is some kind of
|> ~ concerted effort to neuter the kernel in all aspects.
|>
|
| The kernel is nothing without userspace.  Ditto, likewise.  The kernel
| needs to service the user space applications.  Thus, kernel hackers need
| to service application developers.  In my view, kernel hacking (while

*shrug* I can imagine designs that are done entirely in kernel space for
some reason.  This is just pure prejudice on your part to imagine a race
of userspace overlords.  Although if they had a sexy uniform and looked
prettier than the current userspace guys, I might be convinced to go
along with this.

| If there were a more responsible person taking issue with distribution
| policies, then the rest of you guys would fall in line, I think.  But

Like I said about a thousand times an actual spec for this product, so
long as it was sane and self-consistent with its goals is the missing
ingredient.  Generally if people discuss technical stuff without
prejudice and insecurity they can quickly reach a globally acceptable way.

- -Andy
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