linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2/2] mmap.2: MAP

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Message-ID: <c7c7a30e-a122-1bbf-88a2-3349d755c62d@gmail.com>
Date:   Mon, 18 Dec 2017 20:12:41 +0100
From:   "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@...il.com>
To:     Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, Cyril Hrubis <chrubis@...e.cz>
Cc:     mtk.manpages@...il.com, Pavel Machek <pavel@....cz>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        Linux API <linux-api@...r.kernel.org>,
        Khalid Aziz <khalid.aziz@...cle.com>,
        Michael Ellerman <mpe@...erman.id.au>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@...linux.org.uk>,
        Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-arch <linux-arch@...r.kernel.org>,
        Florian Weimer <fweimer@...hat.com>,
        John Hubbard <jhubbard@...dia.com>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>,
        Mike Rapoport <rppt@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] mmap.2: MAP_FIXED updated documentation

Hello Kees,

I'm late to the party, and only just caught up with the fuss :-).

On 12/14/2017 12:19 AM, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 6:40 AM, Cyril Hrubis <chrubis@...e.cz> wrote:
>> Hi!
>>> You selected stupid name for a flag. Everyone and their dog agrees
>>> with that. There's even consensus on better name (and everyone agrees
>>> it is better than .._SAFE). Of course, we could have debate if it is
>>> NOREPLACE or NOREMOVE or ... and that would be bikeshed. This was just
>>> poor naming on your part.
>>
>> Well while everybody agrees that the name is so bad that basically
>> anything else would be better, there does not seem to be consensus on
>> which one to pick. I do understand that this frustrating and fruitless.
> 
> Based on the earlier threads where I tried to end the bikeshedding, it
> seemed like MAP_FIXED_NOREPLACE was the least bad option.
> 
>> So what do we do now, roll a dice to choose new name?
>>
>> Or do we ask BFDL[1] to choose the name?
> 
> I'd like to hear feedback from Michael Kerrisk, as he's had to deal
> with these kinds of choices in the past. I'm fine to ask Linus too. I
> just want to get past the name since the feature is quite valuable.
> 
> And if Michal doesn't want to touch this patch any more, I'm happy to
> do the search/replace/resend. :P

Something with the prefix MAP_FIXED_ seems to me obviously desirable,
both to suggest that the function is similar, and also for easy
grepping of the source code to look for instances of both.
MAP_FIXED_SAFE didn't really bother me as a name, but 
MAP_FIXED_NOREPLACE (or MAP_FIXED_NOCLOBBER) seem slightly more 
descriptive of what the flag actually does, so a little better.

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/