netdev - Re: [PATCH] ethtool.h: Add "structs are public" disclaimer comment

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Date:	Sun, 14 Mar 2010 17:50:34 +0000
From:	Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@...arflare.com>
To:	Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>
Cc:	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>, ajitk@...verengines.com,
	ajitkhaparde@...il.com, jeff@...zik.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ethtool.h: Add "structs are public" disclaimer comment

On Sun, 2010-03-14 at 09:17 -0700, Joe Perches wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-03-13 at 18:11 -0800, David Miller wrote:
> > For the millionth time, you cannot change these datastructures
> > like this without breaking all existing userspace applications
> > out there.
> 
> Maybe this might help reduce the broken record repetitiveness.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>
> ---
> diff --git a/include/linux/ethtool.h b/include/linux/ethtool.h
> index b33f316..9bd7583 100644
> --- a/include/linux/ethtool.h
> +++ b/include/linux/ethtool.h
> @@ -10,6 +10,15 @@
>   * Portions Copyright (C) Sun Microsystems 2008
>   */
>  
> +/*
> + * Do not submit patches that change the public structs not guarded by
> + * #ifdef __KERNEL__ in this file.
> + *
> + * In case the use of __u8, __u16, __u32 and other reserved types don't
> + * mean much to you, these structs are used by user-space applications
> + * and must not be changed.
> + */

This comment is not quite correct: reserved fields may be replaced so
long as the structure size and offsets of other fields stay the same.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare Communications
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.

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