linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2/6] genalloc: selftest

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Date:   Sun, 11 Feb 2018 13:01:57 -0800
From:   Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>
To:     Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>
Cc:     Philippe Ombredanne <pombredanne@...b.com>,
        Igor Stoppa <igor.stoppa@...wei.com>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, mhocko@...nel.org,
        labbott@...hat.com, jglisse@...hat.com,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>, cl@...ux.com,
        linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/6] genalloc: selftest

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 12:27:14PM -0800, Randy Dunlap wrote:
> On 02/11/18 12:22, Philippe Ombredanne wrote:
> > nit... For a comment in .h this line should be instead its own comment
> > as the first line:
> >> +/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 */
> 
> Why are we treating header files (.h) differently than .c files?
> Either one can use the C++ "//" comment syntax.

This is now documented!

Documentation/process/license-rules.rst:

   If a specific tool cannot handle the standard comment style, then the
   appropriate comment mechanism which the tool accepts shall be used. This
   is the reason for having the "/\* \*/" style comment in C header
   files. There was build breakage observed with generated .lds files where
   'ld' failed to parse the C++ comment. This has been fixed by now, but
   there are still older assembler tools which cannot handle C++ style
   comments.

Personally, I find this disappointing.  I find this:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
/*
 * XArray implementation
 * Copyright (c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation
 * Author: Matthew Wilcox <mawilcox@...rosoft.com>
 */

much less visually appealling than

/*
 * XArray implementation
 * Copyright (c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation
 * Author: Matthew Wilcox <mawilcox@...rosoft.com>
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
 */

I can't see this variation making a tag extraction tool harder to write.