Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261193AbVALCYs (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:24:48 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261264AbVALCYs (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:24:48 -0500 Received: from [209.195.52.120] ([209.195.52.120]:62449 "HELO warden2.diginsite.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S261193AbVALCYq (ORCPT ); Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:24:46 -0500 From: David Lang To: "Barry K. Nathan" Cc: Andries Brouwer , Linus Torvalds , Marcelo Tosatti , Alan Cox , Lukasz Trabinski , Linux Kernel Mailing List Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 18:23:39 -0800 (PST) X-X-Sender: dlang@dlang.diginsite.com Subject: Re: [PATCH] make uselib configurable (was Re: uselib() & 2.6.X?) In-Reply-To: <20050112021246.GE4325@ip68-4-98-123.oc.oc.cox.net> Message-ID: References: <20050107170712.GK29176@logos.cnet> <1105136446.7628.11.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20050107221255.GA8749@logos.cnet> <20050111225127.GD4378@ip68-4-98-123.oc.oc.cox.net> <20050111235907.GG2760@pclin040.win.tue.nl> <20050112021246.GE4325@ip68-4-98-123.oc.oc.cox.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1415 Lines: 30 On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Barry K. Nathan wrote: >> People always claim that Linux is good in preserving binary compatibility. >> Don't know how true that was, but introducing such config options doesnt >> help. > > Binary compatibility is good to have, but it isn't everything in life. > *Optionally* breaking compatibility with certain types of old binaries > doesn't seem so bad to me. People who want binary compatibility can have > it, and people who don't need it can choose to not install the old code > on their systems. we already allow people to not support a.out formats, this breaks binary compatability (probably much more severely then this does) however we do need to be very sure that if any call is dropped as being obsolete it really is not likly to be used (see all the recent flames about people dropping (or proposing dropping) features out of the kernel for examples of what not to mark obsolete) David Lang -- There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. -- C.A.R. Hoare - 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/