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Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}

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From: Adrian Bunk
Subject: Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}
Date: Monday, September 10, 2007 - 5:03 am

On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 02:23:24AM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:

If it is really your intention that "everyone" warns external module 
authors in advance, the interesting part of the process are patches 
like commit 7d12e780e003f93433d49ce78cfedf4b4c52adc5 that break the API 
for virtually every module.

EXPORT_UNUSED_SYMBOL can't handle such API changes, you'll need to add 
other parts to the process. In this case it would most likely require 
adding a new IRQ API plus new APIs in several subsystems where structs 
changed, mantaining both in parallel for some time, and then dropping 
the older ones after some time.

What we lose is a bit of flexibility when changing kernel code plus a 
bit of time when adding replacement APIs and maintaining both in 
parallel.

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

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Messages in current thread:
[-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Adrian Bunk, (Sun Sep 9, 1:25 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Christoph Hellwig, (Sun Sep 9, 1:39 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Andrew Morton, (Sun Sep 9, 2:59 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Adrian Bunk, (Sun Sep 9, 3:22 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Arjan van de Ven, (Sun Sep 9, 3:41 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Adrian Bunk, (Sun Sep 9, 4:18 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Christoph Hellwig, (Mon Sep 10, 2:08 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Andrew Morton, (Mon Sep 10, 2:23 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Adrian Bunk, (Mon Sep 10, 5:03 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, David Miller, (Mon Sep 10, 5:18 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Christoph Hellwig, (Mon Sep 10, 5:21 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Alan Cox, (Mon Sep 10, 5:31 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Al Viro, (Mon Sep 10, 5:43 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Arjan van de Ven, (Mon Sep 10, 8:14 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Andrew Morton, (Mon Sep 10, 10:25 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Alan Cox, (Mon Sep 10, 10:44 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Andrew Morton, (Mon Sep 10, 10:54 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Adrian Bunk, (Mon Sep 10, 12:58 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Andrew Morton, (Mon Sep 10, 1:17 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Rene Herman, (Mon Sep 10, 3:15 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Adrian Bunk, (Mon Sep 10, 3:18 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Adrian Bunk, (Mon Sep 10, 3:41 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Rene Herman, (Mon Sep 10, 3:56 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Greg KH, (Thu Sep 13, 4:23 pm)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Adrian Bunk, (Tue Sep 18, 7:10 am)
Re: [-mm patch] unexport sys_{open,read}, Dave Jones, (Tue Sep 25, 2:17 pm)