[Mesa-dev] DEATH to old drivers!

[Luc Verhaegen]

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 01:50:25PM -0700, Corbin Simpson wrote:
> +1. If anybody needs them, they're in git.
> 
> Sending from a mobile, pardon my terseness. ~ C.

*sigh* Software populism...

But seriously. How would such a thing work?

Drivers will be thrown out because none of those currently chiming care 
about doing the extra bit of work needed to maintain at least some 
highly standard interfaces.

It seems that these less popular drivers are gone for good. Because what 
would one have to do to get them back in? What are the criteria for 
that? And how will such criteria evolve? Because stating "you don't have 
features that some cards already implemented 12 years ago" is a pretty 
shaky path to venture out on. What's next? "because i do not like the 
people who develop?"* Now that would be very free and open indeed.

The way the mesa monolith exists today, also leaves nothing to the 
imagination. Once a driver is "dropped" there is also no way of 
maintaining it externally.

To further that: an attempt at proposing some rudimentary SDK, which 
would shift the compatibility burden to the driver developers (to some 
extent, this SDK will also not be allowed to move as shortsightedly as 
before -- which in itself does not exclude evolution at all), wasn't 
exactly hailed positively. Such infrastructure would've made such brash 
"development" possible.

Luc Verhaegen.
* Sounds familiar, doesn't it.