linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v1 0/3] drivers/char: remove /dev/kmem for good

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Message-ID: <20210324225812.GM77072@balbir-desktop>
Date:   Thu, 25 Mar 2021 09:58:12 +1100
From:   Balbir Singh <bsingharora@...il.com>
To:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     David Hildenbrand <david@...hat.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-mm@...ck.org,
        "Alexander A. Klimov" <grandmaster@...klimov.de>,
        Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@...tlin.com>,
        Andrew Lunn <andrew@...n.ch>,
        Andrey Zhizhikin <andrey.zhizhikin@...ca-geosystems.com>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@...nel.crashing.org>,
        Brian Cain <bcain@...eaurora.org>,
        Christian Borntraeger <borntraeger@...ibm.com>,
        Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@...roup.eu>,
        Chris Zankel <chris@...kel.net>,
        Corentin Labbe <clabbe@...libre.com>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
        Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>,
        Gerald Schaefer <gerald.schaefer@...ux.ibm.com>,
        Greentime Hu <green.hu@...il.com>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Gregory Clement <gregory.clement@...tlin.com>,
        Heiko Carstens <hca@...ux.ibm.com>,
        Helge Deller <deller@....de>, Hillf Danton <hdanton@...a.com>,
        huang ying <huang.ying.caritas@...il.com>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        Ivan Kokshaysky <ink@...assic.park.msu.ru>,
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        Jonas Bonn <jonas@...thpole.se>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
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        Kuninori Morimoto <kuninori.morimoto.gx@...esas.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
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        Xiaoming Ni <nixiaoming@...wei.com>,
        Yoshinori Sato <ysato@...rs.osdn.me>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v1 0/3] drivers/char: remove /dev/kmem for good

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 12:24:12PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> 
> > Let's remove /dev/kmem, which is unused and obsolete.
> 
> I grabbed these.  Silently - the cc list is amazing ;)
> 
> I was wondering if it would be better to permanently disable /dev/kmem
> in Kconfig along with a comment "if you really want this thing then
> email peeps@...ces with a very good reason why".  Let that ride for a
> year or three then blam.
> 
> But this is so much more attractive, and it certainly sounds like it's
> worth any damage it might cause.
> 
> We do tend to think about distros.  I bet there are a number of weird
> embedded type systems using /dev/kmem - it's amazing what sorts of
> hacks those people will put up with the get something out the door. 
> But those systems tend to carry a lot of specialized changes anyway, so
> they can just add "revert David's patch" to their pile.
>


I wonder if we should have the opposite of driver/staging and call it
outgoing, with a big thank you to the users and developers and also
to indicate this feature will be removed in the next (few) merge(s)
cycles. I guess not all code can be accumulated under a single
hierarchy. May not be worth the effort, just thinking out loud.

Balbir Singh