Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt

   1 The following is a list of files and features that are going to be
   2 removed in the kernel source tree.  Every entry should contain what
   3 exactly is going away, why it is happening, and who is going to be doing
   4 the work.  When the feature is removed from the kernel, it should also
   5 be removed from this file.
   6
   7 ---------------------------
   8
   9 What:   devfs
  10 When:   July 2005
  11 Files:  fs/devfs/*, include/linux/devfs_fs*.h and assorted devfs
  12         function calls throughout the kernel tree
  13 Why:    It has been unmaintained for a number of years, has unfixable
  14         races, contains a naming policy within the kernel that is
  15         against the LSB, and can be replaced by using udev.
  16 Who:    Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com>
  17
  18 ---------------------------
  19
  20 What:   RAW driver (CONFIG_RAW_DRIVER)
  21 When:   December 2005
  22 Why:    declared obsolete since kernel 2.6.3
  23         O_DIRECT can be used instead
  24 Who:    Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
  25
  26 ---------------------------
  27
  28 What:   drivers that were depending on OBSOLETE_OSS_DRIVER
  29         (config options already removed)
  30 When:   before 2.6.19
  31 Why:    OSS drivers with ALSA replacements
  32 Who:    Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
  33
  34 ---------------------------
  35
  36 What:   raw1394: requests of type RAW1394_REQ_ISO_SEND, RAW1394_REQ_ISO_LISTEN
  37 When:   November 2006
  38 Why:    Deprecated in favour of the new ioctl-based rawiso interface, which is
  39         more efficient.  You should really be using libraw1394 for raw1394
  40         access anyway.
  41 Who:    Jody McIntyre <scjody@modernduck.com>
  42
  43 ---------------------------
  44
  45 What:   sbp2: module parameter "force_inquiry_hack"
  46 When:   July 2006
  47 Why:    Superceded by parameter "workarounds". Both parameters are meant to be
  48         used ad-hoc and for single devices only, i.e. not in modprobe.conf,
  49         therefore the impact of this feature replacement should be low.
  50 Who:    Stefan Richter <stefanr@s5r6.in-berlin.de>
  51
  52 ---------------------------
  53
  54 What:   Video4Linux API 1 ioctls and video_decoder.h from Video devices.
  55 When:   July 2006
  56 Why:    V4L1 AP1 was replaced by V4L2 API. during migration from 2.4 to 2.6
  57         series. The old API have lots of drawbacks and don't provide enough
  58         means to work with all video and audio standards. The newer API is
  59         already available on the main drivers and should be used instead.
  60         Newer drivers should use v4l_compat_translate_ioctl function to handle
  61         old calls, replacing to newer ones.
  62         Decoder iocts are using internally to allow video drivers to
  63         communicate with video decoders. This should also be improved to allow
  64         V4L2 calls being translated into compatible internal ioctls.
  65 Who:    Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@brturbo.com.br>
  66
  67 ---------------------------
  68
  69 What:   remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(insert_resource)
  70 When:   April 2006
  71 Files:  kernel/resource.c
  72 Why:    No modular usage in the kernel.
  73 Who:    Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
  74
  75 ---------------------------
  76
  77 What:   PCMCIA control ioctl (needed for pcmcia-cs [cardmgr, cardctl])
  78 When:   November 2005
  79 Files:  drivers/pcmcia/: pcmcia_ioctl.c
  80 Why:    With the 16-bit PCMCIA subsystem now behaving (almost) like a
  81         normal hotpluggable bus, and with it using the default kernel
  82         infrastructure (hotplug, driver core, sysfs) keeping the PCMCIA
  83         control ioctl needed by cardmgr and cardctl from pcmcia-cs is
  84         unnecessary, and makes further cleanups and integration of the
  85         PCMCIA subsystem into the Linux kernel device driver model more
  86         difficult. The features provided by cardmgr and cardctl are either
  87         handled by the kernel itself now or are available in the new
  88         pcmciautils package available at
  89         http://kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/
  90 Who:    Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
  91
  92 ---------------------------
  93
  94 What:   ip_queue and ip6_queue (old ipv4-only and ipv6-only netfilter queue)
  95 When:   December 2005
  96 Why:    This interface has been obsoleted by the new layer3-independent
  97         "nfnetlink_queue".  The Kernel interface is compatible, so the old
  98         ip[6]tables "QUEUE" targets still work and will transparently handle
  99         all packets into nfnetlink queue number 0.  Userspace users will have
 100         to link against API-compatible library on top of libnfnetlink_queue
 101         instead of the current 'libipq'.
 102 Who:    Harald Welte <laforge@netfilter.org>
 103
 104 ---------------------------
 105
 106 What:   remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(kernel_thread)
 107 When:   August 2006
 108 Files:  arch/*/kernel/*_ksyms.c
 109 Why:    kernel_thread is a low-level implementation detail.  Drivers should
 110         use the <linux/kthread.h> API instead which shields them from
 111         implementation details and provides a higherlevel interface that
 112         prevents bugs and code duplication
 113 Who:    Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
 114
 115 ---------------------------
 116
 117 What:   CONFIG_FORCED_INLINING
 118 When:   June 2006
 119 Why:    Config option is there to see if gcc is good enough. (in january
 120         2006). If it is, the behavior should just be the default. If it's not,
 121         the option should just go away entirely.
 122 Who:    Arjan van de Ven
 123
 124 ---------------------------
 125
 126 What:   START_ARRAY ioctl for md
 127 When:   July 2006
 128 Files:  drivers/md/md.c
 129 Why:    Not reliable by design - can fail when most needed.
 130         Alternatives exist
 131 Who:    NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de>
 132
 133 ---------------------------
 134
 135 What:   au1x00_uart driver
 136 When:   January 2006
 137 Why:    The 8250 serial driver now has the ability to deal with the differences
 138         between the standard 8250 family of UARTs and their slightly strange
 139         brother on Alchemy SOCs.  The loss of features is not considered an
 140         issue.
 141 Who:    Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>
 142
 143 ---------------------------
 144
 145 What:   eepro100 network driver
 146 When:   January 2007
 147 Why:    replaced by the e100 driver
 148 Who:    Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
 149
 150 ---------------------------
 151
 152 What:   pci_module_init(driver)
 153 When:   January 2007
 154 Why:    Is replaced by pci_register_driver(pci_driver).
 155 Who:    Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0@student.ltu.se> and Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
 156
 157 ---------------------------
 158
 159 What:   Usage of invalid timevals in setitimer
 160 When:   March 2007
 161 Why:    POSIX requires to validate timevals in the setitimer call. This
 162         was never done by Linux. The invalid (e.g. negative timevals) were
 163         silently converted to more or less random timeouts and intervals.
 164         Until the removal a per boot limited number of warnings is printed
 165         and the timevals are sanitized.
 166
 167 Who:    Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
 168
 169 ---------------------------
 170
 171 What:   I2C interface of the it87 driver
 172 When:   January 2007
 173 Why:    The ISA interface is faster and should be always available. The I2C
 174         probing is also known to cause trouble in at least one case (see
 175         bug #5889.)
 176 Who:    Jean Delvare <khali@linux-fr.org>
 177
 178 ---------------------------
 179
 180 What:   remove EXPORT_SYMBOL(tasklist_lock)
 181 When:   August 2006
 182 Files:  kernel/fork.c
 183 Why:    tasklist_lock protects the kernel internal task list.  Modules have
 184         no business looking at it, and all instances in drivers have been due
 185         to use of too-lowlevel APIs.  Having this symbol exported prevents
 186         moving to more scalable locking schemes for the task list.
 187 Who:    Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
 188
 189 ---------------------------
 190
 191 What:   mount/umount uevents
 192 When:   February 2007
 193 Why:    These events are not correct, and do not properly let userspace know
 194         when a file system has been mounted or unmounted.  Userspace should
 195         poll the /proc/mounts file instead to detect this properly.
 196 Who:    Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
 197
 198 ---------------------------
 199
 200 What:   USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
 201 When:   Febuary 2008
 202 Files:  include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
 203 Why:    The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
 204         possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
 205         that operate as fast as the USB bus allows.  Because of this, the USB
 206         subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
 207         register with it, after this grace period is over.  If anyone needs
 208         any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
 209         userspace filesystems, please contact the
 210         linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
 211         there will be glad to help you out.
 212 Who:    Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
 213
 214 ---------------------------
 215
 216 What:   find_trylock_page
 217 When:   January 2007
 218 Why:    The interface no longer has any callers left in the kernel. It
 219         is an odd interface (compared with other find_*_page functions), in
 220         that it does not take a refcount to the page, only the page lock.
 221         It should be replaced with find_get_page or find_lock_page if possible.
 222         This feature removal can be reevaluated if users of the interface
 223         cannot cleanly use something else.
 224 Who:    Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
 225
 226 ---------------------------