Jean Delvare writes:
Not removing it now has a high risk of developers continuing to ignore the deprecation warnings and adding new legacy drivers, which I then must convert to the new model. This never ends.
I know my behavior may seem a bit rude, but apparently this is the only way to get things to actually happen. I've been waiting for over a year already!
I sympathize, but throwing disruptive changes into Linus' tree when we're past -rc3 is not the way to solve the problem.
The way to solve the problem is to (a) publish a branch where you put the stuff you're going to ask Linus to pull in the next merge window, (b) push a commit there that removes the legacy interfaces, (c) ask Stephen Rothwell to include that branch in linux-next.
The linux-next tree gets built for a wide range of architectures and configs, and any breakages get noticed and fixed pretty quickly. Getting the removal of the legacy interfaces into linux-next will do more in a week than a year's worth of deprecation warnings. :)
I don't think the risk is that high, at least not for sound drivers. The conversions are fairly easy and if something really went wrong, fixing it is a matter of minutes.
We're past -rc3 now. This is not the time for pushing this sort of change into Linus' tree. Ask Linus if you don't believe me.
I have converted all remaining drivers by now: http://i2c.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Legacy_drivers_to_be_converted It's really only a matter of getting them tested in time now. Given that most drivers are powermac ones, what I really need here is powermac users/maintainers to test my patches and report success or failure.
OK, but please work in your next branch and linux-next, not Linus' tree.
Paul.