In message <200112050230.VAA29642@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>der Mouse writ
es
>>> I believe that adding kludges to work around other people's
>>> brokenness is almost invariably a Bad Thing, since it removes their
>>> incentive to fix their brokennesses.
>
>> Hmm, should we go through all of the ethernet drivers and remove all
>> of the code to work around various "bugs" in the hardware?  After all
>> it is a work around for other broken behavior.
>
>I've delayed responding this long in an attempt to sort out my position
>on it.  This is a fully valid response to my comment and deserves a
>serious reply.  However, I'm having trouble pinning down the relevant
>difference between won't-frag and (say) SDEV_QUIRK_NOLUNS.

If I can be so bold, the difference is that network nodes
are supposed to work and play together nicely, according to
well defined, published standards.  Hardware has always been 
completely random, and, to me at least, scary -- what standard
does any of it adhere to, other than, say, NE2000 cards?  I've
yet to buy a network card (other than NE2000s) that promised
me much at all about its register structure, and I've certainly
been burned more than once by this.  TCP/IP means something, and
folks oughta adhere to that definition.

I think that working around other people's frailties is a good thing,
in general, but the MSS clamping stuff is pretty close to where I draw
the line.

Kevin
kml@selresearch.net