Linux: The Case For Removing devfs

Greg KH posted an updated patchset for removing devfs from the mainline Linux kernel as was already done in the -mm kernel, "they are the same 'delete devfs' patches that I submitted for 2.6.12 and 2.6.13 and 2.6.14 and 2.6.15 and 2.6.16. It rips out all of devfs from the kernel and ends up saving a lot of space." The idea of removing the unmaintained devfs whose functionality has been replaced by udev has been discussed since late 2003 [story], gaining momentum in 2005 [story] and leading to lengthy debates [story]. In his latest email Greg went on to explain, "since 2.6.13 came out, I have seen no complaints about the fact that devfs was not able to be enabled anymore, and in fact, a lot of different subsystems have already been deleting devfs support for a while now, with apparently no complaints (due to the lack of users.)" Greg continues to make the case for removing devfs:

"This patchset has also been in the -mm tree, with no complaints or issues for the past few months. It's also been almost a full year past the date when we said we would delete devfs from the kernel tree in the file, Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt, almost two years since we publicly announced to the world that devfs would be removed from the kernel tree. So I think people have had plenty of advance notice that this was going to happen by now :)"