"If you're sure that this code doesn't need the BKL (and it kind of looked that way to me), the preferred approach seems to be to put in a comment to that effect so that it's clear that the code has been looked at. So sending me a patch which does this would be great. Otherwise, if you're willing to swear on top of a stack of Knuth output that the BKL is not needed for specific open functions, I can revert my patch back out and put in the comment - whichever you prefer."