Subject: Re: -mm merge plans for 2.6.21
From: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Frederik Deweerdt <deweerdt@free.fr>,
       Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@linux01.gwdg.de>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
       tglx@linutronix.de
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Organization: Intel International BV
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2007 13:32:12 +0100
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> 
> As long as nobody takes the address of them (which wouldn't compile today
> anyway) then the compiler should be able to not allocate store for these. 
> That they're const might help too.

are you really sure?
> 
> > why not just bite the bullet?
> > removing version.h also broke the same all external modules, and they
> > got fixed in days.. no big deal. kernel api change all the time, this
> > one has been around in "double mode" quite some time...
> 
> Pretty much every driver in the world will want these symbols.  I expect
> we'll help some people by doing this, and the cost to us is very small.  


well the same people had to change for the request_irq prototype change
etc etc.

I suppose they'll all get fixed if some distro does this cleanup
anyway... otherwise no amount of deprecation will get things changed;
unless the compile actually breaks nobody will pay attention.

Also quite a few external drivers that are aiming for mainline inclusion
should already be using the new settings for a while anyway...


Another option is to back out the change again totally; having 2
constants for the same thing is just a bad idea, and old users will keep
sneaking in.

-- 
if you want to mail me at work (you don't), use arjan (at) linux.intel.com
Test the interaction between Linux and your BIOS via http://www.linuxfirmwarekit.org

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