Re: Reasons for keeping sc(4) and libvgl ?

From: Warner Losh <imp_at_bsdimp.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2022 15:44:28 UTC
On Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 9:37 AM Eugene Grosbein <eugen@grosbein.net> wrote:

> 23.06.2022 22:26, Warner Losh wrote:
>
> > Giant is being removed entirely, and with it all straggler drivers that
> aren't converted by the removal date.
> > There's no fixed date for this, at the present time, but I'm about to
> commit changes that make it impossible
> > for new code to reference Giant. Having Giant, at all, causes slow downs
> elsewhere in the system, which
> > is why we're pushing to remove it entirely.
>
> Why is it better to lose working code then to keep it "slow"?
>

Supporting Giant, at all, means creating extra taskqueues, processes, etc.
It means extra checks in
all the code paths since Giant is so 'special'. To do this just to support
an obsolete console seems to
many to be an unwise tradeoff once everything else is in order. Especially
since there have been years
for people that care about the problems to arrange solutions.

We are still some time away from everything else eliminating Giant, so
there's still time to get things
fixed. However, the increasingly obscure nature of the problems and/or
their diminished relevancy
to the project means that absent code showing up (either from the hobbyist
community or from
funded work), the problems will remain because the limited resources of
those working on the
project aren't ample enough for them to be solved. If they are important to
you, and nobody
else is working on them, now is your chance. Ideally, there'd be enough
time and people to
solve all the problems, but there is not.

Warner