Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DEVFS

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 21:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DEVFS

insignificant Doc aberdeen 14:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 12:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete --Doc aberdeen 16:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - please be a bit more specific with your reasoning. Citing our notability guidelines explicitly or implicitly would be sufficient. Thanks. MER-C 13:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Notability_(software):

• "The software package has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself"
• "The software is so well-known that its trademark has suffered from genericization"
• "The software is among the core products of a notable software developer or vendor"
• "The software is included in a major operating system distribution such as Debian or Fedora Core, and the maintainer of the distribution is independent from the software developer"

Neither of them hold for devfs --Doc aberdeen 16:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep The article is about something that is at least as notable as many of the obsolete file systems with articles. Could use some improvement though. At the worst, put it somewhere to do with the Linux Kernel or something. Mister.Manticore 14:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Although since it is used in FreeBSD as well, I suppose that might not work so well unless you put it in both. Mister.Manticore 14:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Well now it's only used in FreeBSD as far as I know. Any other OSs that use it? --Doc aberdeen 15:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
      • I found out Solaris has it's own devfs too. Still, they are very different from the now removed Linux devfs which the article is about. --Doc aberdeen 16:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
        • OS X uses one as well. Zetawoof^(ζ) 17:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Device file systems are present in a number of UNIX-based operating systems. The software notability criteria don't really apply here, as this is an operating system component, not a standalone program. Zetawoof^(ζ) 17:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
  • It's still a piece of software, and thus the criteria apply. If you look closely at the article, moreover, you'll also see that it satisfies the first criterion. ☺ Uncle G 18:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Actually, the fourth criterion ("included in a major operating system distribution") definitely holds. Zetawoof^(ζ) 23:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Please note that it's "included in a major operating system distribution [...], and the maintainer of the distribution is independent from the software developer". Solaris includes Sun's devfs, OSX's one may be derived from the BSD devfs but heavily modified. --Doc aberdeen 12:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, something that gets into kernel standard distributions is not insignificant. Gazpacho 07:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep since it certainly satisfies at least two notability criteria (1 and 4). Michael Kinyon 11:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
  • "has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself". Any published (whether that's print or not I don't know) work whose subject is devfs? Setup HOW-TOs and tutorials are trivial. I think this criteria wants to mean it was subject of research, but maybe I'm wrong. Also, some old stable branches of distributions might still have devfs but with time it will not meet 4 either. --Doc aberdeen 12:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Four such works are listed in DEVFS#Further_reading. Tutorials are not trivial. That someone independent of the software's author/publisher has gone to the effort of writing and publishing their own lengthy tutorial on the software demonstrates that it is notable. WP:SOFTWARE explains what trivial works is intended to cover, and what constitutes a published work. Uncle G 20:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: notable, worthwhile. I'm not even going to start thinking about the numbers of computers with a devfs file system on them. - Palfrey 02:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.