On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 01:17:59PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote: > On Mon, 10 Sep 2007 21:58:21 +0200 Adrian Bunk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 10:25:56AM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote: > > >... > > > Also, Adrian goes on and on with weird theories about how I'm picking on > > > him. But other patches (such as 7d12e780e003f93433d49ce78c) DO OTHER > > > STUFF. Like simplify the code, and make it smaller, faster or more > > > maintainable or more reliable. > > > > The unexport of sys_{open,read} actually makes the kernel smaller... > > > > > So the tradeoff is quite different from a > > > one-liner which does nothing but kill an export. And, contrary to his > > > claims, we _do_ put temporary back-compat wrappers in there when we > > > change interfaces on those relatively rare occasions when it is possible, > > > and when we remember to do it. > > > > Your tradeoff misses the impact on external modules. > > > > The unexport of sys_open will not break many modules, while > > commit 7d12e780e003f93433d49ce78c most likely broke the majority of > > external modules. > > > > Do we guarantee some API stability to module authors or do we not > > guarantee this? > > Neither. We look at each change and make sensible decisions based upon a > number of factors.
In my experience, the only factor is whether a patch has to go through you or not... > > Emphasizing on API stability in the cases that don't matter much while > > breaking the API in cases that affect most modules doesn't make any > > sense at all. > > > > And your "remember to do it" is an important point. As an example, every > > change to a struct that is part of the signature of one or exportted > > functions does change the API of all of these functions. If we offer any > > API stability for external modules we need to review all patches that > > touch include/ because many of them contain changes to the modules API > > that might otherwise get missed. > > > > Let's either continue to state that their is no stable API for external > > modules or define some API stability rules and do whatever is required > > for implementing them. > > There is no benefit in making some rigid set of rules. Is is considered beneficial to provide API stability for external modules or not? cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/