Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1762929AbYGOVCt (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:02:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1762284AbYGOVCi (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:02:38 -0400 Received: from smtp6.pp.htv.fi ([213.243.153.40]:41447 "EHLO smtp6.pp.htv.fi" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1759871AbYGOVCg (ORCPT ); Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:02:36 -0400 Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:02:30 +0300 From: Adrian Bunk To: Cornelia Huck Cc: Martin Schwidefsky , Heiko Carstens , linux-s390@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [2.6 patch] chsc headers userspace cleanup Message-ID: <20080715210230.GK24533@cs181140183.pp.htv.fi> References: <20080715125817.GB24533@cs181140183.pp.htv.fi> <20080715191748.1f3905ad@gondolin.boeblingen.de.ibm.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080715191748.1f3905ad@gondolin.boeblingen.de.ibm.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1266 Lines: 37 On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 07:17:48PM +0200, Cornelia Huck wrote: > On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:58:18 +0300, > Adrian Bunk wrote: > > > Kernel headers shouldn't expose functions to userspace. > > Could you please elaborate? Especially as I see e.g. > include/linux/virtio_ring.h exporting functions outside #ifdef > __KERNEL__ as well... Our headers are in a bad shape... The userspace headers should contain everything that is part of the ABI between the kernel and userspace. Nothing more. The kernel is heavily changing with each release while the userspace ABI is cast in stone, and leaking more stuff to userspace than required only increases the chances of some userspace programmer using it and some kernel programmer then changing it. cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed -- 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/