From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@thyrsus.com> To: CML2 <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>, kbuild-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Configure.help is complete Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 13:24:54 -0400 Cc: torvalds@transmeta.com, laughing@shared-source.org It gives me great pleasure to announce that the Configure.help master file is now complete with respect to 2.4.5. Every single one of the 2699 configuration symbols actually used in the 2.4.5 codebase's C source files or Makefiles now has an entry in Configure.help. This does not, of course, mean the job of maintaining Configure.help is done; symbols will be added and dropped in the future (there are a handful of new ones in ac5, all now documented), and some existing entries could stand to be rewritten and expanded. But we have passed a milestone -- maintainance will now be a matter of keeping the boat bailed rather than trying to ignore a hole in the side. Thanks to all the contributors who helped put together the over 550 entries necessary to catch up, too many to name here. The result is available at: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/cml2/Configure.help.gz Though carried on the CML2 project page, it can be used with CML1 and is current with respect to both Linus's tree and Alan's. I now have two requests of Linus and Alan: 1. Please pick up this work now. It is a really substantial improvement on what you have in your trees, incorporating it cannot break anything, and you'll help prevent unnecessary hassles due to clashing patches in the future. 2. Please make a policy of rejecting patches that add new configuration symbols without also adding an explanatory Configure.help entry -- and please *announce* that you will do so. We can raise our standards now, and for the sake of having a well-documentated kernel and configuration system I submit that we ought to. -- <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a> Never could an increase of comfort or security be a sufficient good to be bought at the price of liberty. -- Hillaire Belloc - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/