Post Syndicated from original https://lwn.net/Articles/899743/

The kernel has thousands of configuration options, many of which can change
the kernel’s behavior in subtle or surprising ways. Among those options is
CONFIG_ANDROID,
which one might expect to be relatively straightforward; its description
reads, in its entirety: “Enable support for various drivers needed on
the Android platform“. It turns out that this option does more than
that, to the surprise of some users. That has led to a plan to remove this
option, but that has brought a surprise or two of its own — and some
disagreement — as well.