From: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
To: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH for review] [123/145] i386: make fault notifier unconditional and export it
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 22:17:48 +0200
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Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
References: <20060810935.775038000@suse.de> <20060810193722.8082B13B8E@wotan.suse.de> <20060813152859.GB3543@stusta.de>
In-Reply-To: <20060813152859.GB3543@stusta.de>
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On Sunday 13 August 2006 17:28, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > It's needed for external debuggers and overhead is very small.
> >...
> 
> We are currently trying to remove exports not used by any in-kernel 
> code.

That ``we'' doesn't include me at least.

> 
> The patch description also lacks the name of what you call "external 
> debuggers" (I assume the exports are not for a theoretical usage but for 
> an already existing debugger?).

The fault chain is needed for pretty much any debugger, including
kgdb, kdb, nlkd. The one in this case was NLKD.
 
> Especially nowadays where people demand deprecation periods for removing 
> exports without any in-kernel users there must be a _very_ good 
> justification when adding such exports.

I've always exported symbols when people can make a reasonable case that they 
need it for extern free non broken by design code.

On the other hand I have no problems with removing unused exports
that don't have such a case or are clearly not a useful external
interface.

> BTW1: The subject of this email is wrong (it's the x86_64 patch).

Fixed, thanks

-Andi
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