linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 01/50] x86/boot/e820: Introduce arch/x86/include/asm/e820/types.h

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Message-ID: <20170129171336.GA4752@ravnborg.org>
Date:   Sun, 29 Jan 2017 18:13:36 +0100
From:   Sam Ravnborg <sam@...nborg.org>
To:     Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
        Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        "H . Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Yinghai Lu <yinghai@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 01/50] x86/boot/e820: Introduce
 arch/x86/include/asm/e820/types.h

On Sat, Jan 28, 2017 at 11:11:22PM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> 
> The plan is to keep the old UAPI header in place but the kernel won't
> use it anymore - and after some time we'll try to remove it. (User-space
> tools better have local copies of headers anyway, instead of relying
> on kernel headers.)

The idea with uapi is the the kernel provides a sane set of headers
to be used by user space.
So we avoid random copies that is maintained by random people in random
ways resulting in random bugs.

The step(s) outlined here can only result in inconsistency and
cannot benefit neither user space nor the kernel in the long run.

The uapi shall be lean and clean headers, and shall include
no info whatsoever that is not relevant for user space.

But requiring all user space programs (diverse libc variants,
other programs) to maintain their own copy can only result in
inconsistencies that is the benefit for no one.

	Sam