Re: [PATCH v3] Many pages: Document fixed-width types with ISO C naming

Alejandro Colomar
2022-08-25T08:04:13Z

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On 8/25/22 09:44, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> Hi Greg,
>
> On 8/25/22 07:57, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 25, 2022 at 01:36:10AM +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
>>> But from your side what do we have?  Just direct NAKs without much
>>> explanation.  The only one who gave some explanation was Greg, and he
>>> vaguely pointed to Linus's comments about it in the past, with no
>>> precise
>>> pointer to it.  I investigated a lot before v2, and could not find
>>> anything
>>> strong enough to recommend using kernel types in user space, so I
>>> pushed v2,
>>> and the discussion was kept.
>>
>> So despite me saying that "this is not ok", and many other maintainers
>> saying "this is not ok", you applied a patch with our objections on it?
>> That is very odd and a bit rude.
>>
>>> I would like that if you still oppose to the patch, at least were
>>> able to
>>> provide some facts to this discussion.
>>
>> The fact is that the kernel can not use the namespace that userspace has
>> with ISO C names.  It's that simple as the ISO standard does NOT
>> describe the variable types for an ABI that can cross the user/kernel
>> boundry.
>
> I understand that.  But user-space programs are allowed to use the
> standard types when calling a syscall that really uses kernel types.
>
> IMHO, it should be irrelevant for the user how the kernel decides to
> call a 64-bit unsigned integer, right?
>
> Or do you mean that some of the pages I modified

... are intended mostly for kernel-space programmers?

>
>>
>> Work with the ISO C standard if you wish to document such type usage,
>> and get it approved and then we would be willing to consider such a
>> change.  But until then, we have to stick to our variable name types,
>> just like all other operating systems have to (we are not alone here.)
>>
>> Please revert your change.
>
> Thanks for asking nicely.
>
> Since there's ongoing discussion, and I don't want to make it look like
> ignoring it, I've reverted the patch for now.  If I apply it again, I
> hope that it will be with some more consensus, as I've always tried to
> do.  Sorry if I was a bit irascible yesterday.  Shit happens.
>
> TL;DR:  Patch reverted; asking nicely works. =)
>
>>
>> greg k-h
>
> Cheers,
>
> Alex
>

--
Alejandro Colomar
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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