Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 23rd Aug 2008 15:31 UTC
"Once upon a time, a Linux distribution would be installed with a /dev directory fully populated with device files. Most of them represented hardware which would never be present on the installed system, but they needed to be there just in case. Toward the end of this era, it was not uncommon to find systems with around 20,000 special files in /dev, and the number continued to grow. This scheme was unwieldy at best, and the growing number of hotpluggable devices (and devices in general) threatened to make the whole structure collapse under its own weight. Something, clearly, needed to be done." The solution came in the form of udev, and udev uses rules to determine how it should handle devices. This allows distributors to tweak how they want devices to be handled. "Or maybe not. Udev maintainer Kay Sievers has recently let it be known that he would like all distributors to be using the set of udev rules shipped with the program itself." ComputerWorld dives into the situation.
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RE: rules? we don't need no stinking rules?
by FooBarWidget on Sat 23rd Aug 2008 19:15
in reply to "rules? we don't need no stinking rules?"
Member since:2005-11-11
Take the DeviceKit as an example. The DeviceKit had promise, it's goal was to be a 'small' replacement for hal, but now the DeviceKit developer has decided to make this system daemon dependent on the entire glib / GObject framework (because I guess he is also a gnome developer). If my device does not require GObject I either have to deal with the bloatware or rewrite/fork whatever. This is a system daemon that's supposed to be all about interoperability!?!
How ironic. First you complain about rule enforcement. But when someone does something that you don't agree with, then you suddenly don't want the rule to be enforced?
As for "bloat": just how is this bloat? The DeviceKit author has two choices:
1. Write all the required functionality himself.
2. Use the functionality provided by a library, which is shared by many other applications and libraries.
(1) would logically result in *more* bloat because the developer ends up duplicating functionality that can already be found elsewhere.
And really, you call GObject/glib "bloat"? Dude, it's a library of less than 2 MB, and shared by a bazillian of Linux apps! The C standard library is bigger than this! You do know that the memory used by glib is shared all those apps, right?
RE[2]: rules? we don't need no stinking rules?
by g2devi on Sun 24th Aug 2008 01:37
in reply to "RE: rules? we don't need no stinking rules?"
Member since:2005-07-09
Member since:
2006-01-01
The sad reality is that it is quite tough to enforce rules of any sort in the open source world. We all build what we want to build and if someone does not like it they don't have to use it. (Most projects have to operate in this way because that's the only way to attract developers.)
It is only when projects have significant support, let by benevolent dictators that any sort of standards are enforced.
Take the DeviceKit as an example. The DeviceKit had promise, it's goal was to be a 'small' replacement for hal, but now the DeviceKit developer has decided to make this system daemon dependent on the entire glib / GObject framework (because I guess he is also a gnome developer). If my device does not require GObject I either have to deal with the bloatware or rewrite/fork whatever. This is a system daemon that's supposed to be all about interoperability!?!
No way we'll every get interoperability until the primary OSS corporate sponsors agree to it and enforce it among their own developers.