Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261161AbULAALX (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Nov 2004 19:11:23 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261155AbULAALW (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Nov 2004 19:11:22 -0500 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:33243 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261161AbULAALE (ORCPT ); Tue, 30 Nov 2004 19:11:04 -0500 Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 16:10:45 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds To: David Woodhouse cc: Alexandre Oliva , dhowells , Paul Mackerras , Greg KH , Matthew Wilcox , hch@infradead.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, libc-hacker@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: [RFC] Splitting kernel headers and deprecating __KERNEL__ In-Reply-To: <1101858657.4574.33.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: References: <19865.1101395592@redhat.com> <20041125165433.GA2849@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk> <1101406661.8191.9390.camel@hades.cambridge.redhat.com> <20041127032403.GB10536@kroah.com> <16810.24893.747522.656073@cargo.ozlabs.ibm.com> <8219.1101828816@redhat.com> <1101854061.4574.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1101858657.4574.33.camel@localhost.localdomain> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1757 Lines: 46 On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, David Woodhouse wrote: > > Linus, you're arguing that it's better to let users use something which > is non-portable and silently does the wrong thing, as long as it > actually compiles. That this is preferable to making sure it doesn't > compile. I'm saying that if it worked before, it should work after. And my suggestion gives a nice warning. > But atomic.h isn't an example of that. Even atomic.h. I could well imagine that somebody includes atomic.h just to get the thread-safe updates for some architectures. For example, asm-alpha/atomic.h does it right, and I woul dnot be at all surprised if somebody had noticed. And your suggestion has the problem that the people who get bitten by a non-compiling thing are not necessarily the same people who can fix it. > software'? Of course not; you have to draw the line somewhere. And I > would draw it somewhere between atomic.h and byteorder.h -- where would > _you_ draw it? I'll draw it at "somebody might validly use it", because the fact is, I can't test it. Which is why I want patches to this to be OBVIOUSLY CORRECT, dammit! How hard is that to understand? The fact is, the less benefit there is from a change, the more obviously correct it has to be in all forms. Moving stuff around in header files basically fixes zero bugs in the kernel, so the benefit for the kernel is basically zero. Which means that the obviousness factor of the change had better be pretty close to infinite. Comprende? Linus - 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/