2.3.51 tulip broken

Mark H. Wood mwood@IUPUI.Edu
Sat Mar 18 16:06:53 2000


On Sat, 18 Mar 2000, Donald Becker wrote:
[snippage]
>   1) Should the kernel source code interfaces, for well-understood
>      interfaces, be stable?  (We are solidly committed not having a binary
>      interface, so bringing that up is a red herring.)

May I suggest that you carefully explain what you mean by "stable",
because there are at least two definitions of this term that I see on l-k.

Some people think that "stable" means "fossilized for all time, no further
development allowed".  I don't think that this kind of stability should be
imposed on any software, but what do I know?

Others (me included) think that "stable" means "doesn't change often, no
matter how much it does change when it must".  I tend to like this kind of
stability, even when it's being imposed on me.

The people who rise from time to time asking for stability don't seem to
mind the amount of change so much as the number of changes per unit time.

-- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer   mwood@IUPUI.Edu
Go ahead and tell me how stupid I am.

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