Almost all wireless tools have transitioned to
or at least added compatibility with nl80211 so
there's no real need for CONFIG_CFG80211_WEXT
any more. Mark it for removal, and also change
the default to not be enabled.

Signed-off-by Johannes Berg <[email protected]>

---
 Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt |   13 +++++++++++++
 net/wireless/Kconfig                       |    1 -
 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt +13 -0

@@ -433,6 +433,19 @@ Who:	Hans Verkuil <[email protected]
 
 ----------------------------
 
+What:	CONFIG_CFG80211_WEXT
+When:	as soon as distributions ship new wireless tools, ie. wpa_supplicant 1.0
+	and NetworkManager/connman/etc. that are able to use nl80211
+Why:	Wireless extensions are deprecated, and userland tools are moving to
+	using nl80211. New drivers are no longer using wireless extensions,
+	and while there might still be old drivers, both new drivers and new
+	userland no longer needs them and they can't be used for an feature
+	developed in the past couple of years. As such, compatibility with
+	wireless extensions in new drivers will be removed.
+Who:	Johannes Berg <[email protected]>
+
+----------------------------
+
 What:	g_file_storage driver
 When:	3.8
 Why:	This driver has been superseded by g_mass_storage.

net/wireless/Kconfig +0 -1

@@ -114,7 +114,6 @@ config CFG80211_WEXT
 	bool "cfg80211 wireless extensions compatibility"
 	depends on CFG80211
 	select WEXT_CORE
-	default y
 	help
 	  Enable this option if you need old userspace for wireless
 	  extensions with cfg80211-based drivers.

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C. McPherson

2012-05-18 17:39 UTC #2 lore raw

Re: [PATCH 2/2] cfg80211: deprecate CFG80211_WEXT

Please reconsider this! We still have applications that still use some CFG80211_WEXT functions. Can't you just disable it as default?

-Clyde

On 05/16/2012 05:40 PM, Johannes Berg wrote:

Johannes Berg

author maintainer

2012-05-16 21:56 UTC #3 lore raw

PATCH 1/2 wireless: remove wext sysfs

In reply to Johannes Berg

From: Johannes Berg <[email protected]>

The only user of this was hal prior to its 0.5.12
release which happened over two years ago, so I'm
sure this can be removed without issues.

Signed-off-by Johannes Berg <[email protected]>

---
 Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt |    9 ---
 net/core/net-sysfs.c                       |   74 -----------------------------
 net/wireless/Kconfig                       |   13 -----
 3 files changed, 96 deletions(-)

Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt +0 -9

@@ -242,15 +242,6 @@ Who:	Ravikiran Thirumalai <kiran@scalex8
 
 ---------------------------
 
-What:	Code that is now under CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
-	(in net/core/net-sysfs.c)
-When:	3.5
-Why:	Over 1K .text/.data size reduction, data is available in other
-	ways (ioctls)
-Who:	Johannes Berg <[email protected]>
-
----------------------------
-
 What:	sysfs ui for changing p4-clockmod parameters
 When:	September 2009
 Why:	See commits 129f8ae9b1b5be94517da76009ea956e89104ce8 and

net/core/net-sysfs.c +0 ~~-74~~

86 lines not on this page · raw message

net/wireless/Kconfig +0 ~~-13~~

@@ -119,19 +119,6 @@ config CFG80211_WEXT
 	  Enable this option if you need old userspace for wireless
 	  extensions with cfg80211-based drivers.
 
-config WIRELESS_EXT_SYSFS
-	bool "Wireless extensions sysfs files"
-	depends on WEXT_CORE && SYSFS
-	help
-	  This option enables the deprecated wireless statistics
-	  files in /sys/class/net/*/wireless/. The same information
-	  is available via the ioctls as well.
-
-	  Say N. If you know you have ancient tools requiring it,
-	  like very old versions of hal (prior to 0.5.12 release),
-	  say Y and update the tools as soon as possible as this
-	  option will be removed soon.
-
 config LIB80211
 	tristate "Common routines for IEEE802.11 drivers"
 	default n