[fn-mote]

> Moving really old and unused code out of the kernel just to get less AI-assisted bug reports

Obviously, the parent is /s, but when I read this, I thought Linux was removing exploit paths that exercise rarely-used features.

On phone OSes at least, quirky rare formats and features are (were?) a common source of exploitable bugs.

[asgraham]

Is the parent really being sarcastic? I read it as genuine.

There’s presumably plenty of code bloat in the kernel, and while no human would ever scan for bugs in a corner of the kernel that hasn’t been used or touched in decades, AI 100% will. And while those bug reports might be useless as bug reports, they seem promising as “why is this code even here?” flags.

[dormento]

I don't mean to be harsh, but if there's a codepath that is exercised on your hardware, but not on mine, I don't think it would be fair for me to deem it as "bloat". There are a TON of supported devices and use cases that are not my own, but are essential to someone else.

[WD-42]

If you are still using ISDN you could maintain a fork.

This is one of the main examples of drivers that were removed.

[asgraham]

Sure, sure. I’m not arguing for removing drivers for uncommon devices, or even rare devices. But there’s a line somewhere. Maybe it’s at “devices that no longer exist.” But I think it’s somewhere before that. And I have no idea how you’d figure out which devices fall where around this hypothetical line. I can only hope that they had good justification for these removals.

[franktankbank]

Maybe that points to an architecture issue? Is kernel driver support general enough to support all hardware in theory? If so it should be on hardware to provide a compatible api IMO. Note: I really have no experience in any of this there is probably more important things to consider like security/control or something.

[rixed]

Exploit paths in unloaded modules, I guess.