Martin Roth via coreboot wrote:
1) Please don't use the term deprecate - use "moved to a branch"
I don't think the wording matters, my points are discoverability and drive-by maintainance.
If a platform is perfect and doesn't need to be updated, it doesn't need to be on the master branch, right?
I think wrong, because being on master is the only chance to receive tree-wide changes, e.g. through coccinelle spatches or sed:its.
Missing those rots the code quicker so yes, something getting moved to a non-master branch is de-facto deprecation by degradation to second class.
I absolutely agree that if something isn't being used, it doesn't need to be maintained on the master branch.
I disagree.
I just want to make sure that things actually aren't being used before moving them to a branch.
I think "no usage" alone should be a very weak motivator to move something from master, just like "no availability".
(Many SOCs are currently unavailable and will remain so for some time!)
If code is perfect or nearly perfect then why move it?
If there are *concrete* issues with code then I think it would be reasonable for *that* to count much more than "no/unknown usage", but the current proposal did not reference any such issues, Paul's ask didn't yield any and neither did mine.
//Peter