Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261331AbUJWXKr (ORCPT ); Sat, 23 Oct 2004 19:10:47 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261332AbUJWXKr (ORCPT ); Sat, 23 Oct 2004 19:10:47 -0400 Received: from gizmo11ps.bigpond.com ([144.140.71.21]:56551 "HELO gizmo11ps.bigpond.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S261331AbUJWXKi (ORCPT ); Sat, 23 Oct 2004 19:10:38 -0400 Message-ID: <417AE4EA.6070107@bigpond.net.au> Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 09:10:34 +1000 From: Peter Williams User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (X11/20040913) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Rik van Riel CC: Karel Kulhavy , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Writing linux kernel specification References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1574 Lines: 38 Rik van Riel wrote: > On Sat, 23 Oct 2004, Karel Kulhavy wrote: > > >>3) Is Linux kernel meant to have a specification and just a lack of time >> prevented it, or is Linux kernel meant to not have a specification? >>4) If I produce a specification that is valid, correct and complete enough >> to be useful for general public, will it be included on the Linux kernel >> homepage http://www.kernel.org under a link "Linux kernel official >> specification" upon my request? > > > You can write a specification, but I can guarantee you that > it will be out of date the moment you run your spell checker > on it. > > Linux kernel development continues at a very high speed, and > things inside the kernel change all the time. The only thing > that's stable is the user space ABI (the system calls), since > the behaviour of those (mostly) follows POSIX and the Single > Unix Standard (SUS). Maybe that (the mostly bit) is what needs to be documented/specified i.e. any differences between the Linux user space ABI and those two standards. Surely that difference is reasonably stable and having it documented in a single place would be useful. Peter -- Peter Williams pwil3058@bigpond.net.au "Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious." -- Ambrose Bierce - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/