linux-kernel - Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys

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Message-ID: <46E5CBB5.9030101@gmail.com>
Date:	Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:56:53 +0200
From:	Rene Herman <rene.herman@...il.com>
To:	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org>
CC:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Al Viro <viro@....linux.org.uk>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>, perex@...e.cz,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}

On 09/11/2007 12:41 AM, Adrian Bunk wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 11, 2007 at 12:15:56AM +0200, Rene Herman wrote:
>> On 09/11/2007 12:18 AM, Adrian Bunk wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 01:17:59PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
>>>> There is no benefit in making some rigid set of rules.
>>> Is is considered beneficial to provide API stability for external modules 
>>> or not?
>> If I may...
>>
>> Yes, it is. Just not at any significant cost and Andrew is saying that he 
>> considers the _UNUSED() thing not significant.
> 
> But there is no API stability for external modules this way.

I agree that doing things only half is semi-regularly worse than doing them 
not at all, and this specific case might be the worst example of all, as I 
read that using sys_open/read is actively harmful, so, well...

I read the thread since I tend to keep lots of external crap around. Not in 
any way that would mean I'd have any grounds for complaining about anything; 
mostly just driver stuff in various states of completeness that I never seem 
to get around to cleaning up enough to submit to anyone.

But as such, I can comment on the fact that I'm much more likely to notice 
the warning than I am to notice a thread on LKML, say. How much more likely 
I'd be to then also actually do anything about it before it just breaks 
anyway is another matter, but again, well...

> It simply doesn't make sense to give the few sys_open() abusers even 
> more grace period while changes to the IRQ API affecting nearly everyone 
> are allowed without any requirements of ensuring API stability.
> 
> I'm not a fan of API stability for external modules, but if API 
> stability was considered important it should be done consequently and 
> not only for some patches that have the bad fate of having to go through 
> Andrew to Linus.

In this case I believe it makes sense to just rip it out, but generally it 
doesn't need to be such a fully robotic yes/no decision, I'd say.

Rene.
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