From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261216AbULEBHe (ORCPT ); Sat, 4 Dec 2004 20:07:34 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261220AbULEBHe (ORCPT ); Sat, 4 Dec 2004 20:07:34 -0500 Received: from peabody.ximian.com ([130.57.169.10]:63116 "EHLO peabody.ximian.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261216AbULEBH3 (ORCPT ); Sat, 4 Dec 2004 20:07:29 -0500 Subject: Re: Proposal for a userspace "architecture portability" library From: Robert Love To: Paul Mackerras Cc: Linus Torvalds , David Woodhouse , David Howells , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, libc-alpha@sources.redhat.com In-Reply-To: <16818.23575.549824.733470@cargo.ozlabs.ibm.com> References: <16818.23575.549824.733470@cargo.ozlabs.ibm.com> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 20:08:44 -0500 Message-Id: <1102208924.6052.94.camel@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.0.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sun, 2004-12-05 at 11:53 +1100, Paul Mackerras wrote: > Some of our kernel headers implement generally useful abstractions > across all of the architectures we support. I would like to make an > "architecture portability" library, based on the kernel headers but as > a separate project from the kernel, and intended for use in userspace. I think that this is an _awesome_ idea. Might want to check out what overlap there is with existing glibc interfaces. For example, I presume that glibc implements at least some of the atomic operations (but I also think having a full suite of atomic operations available is useful). Some of the stuff, like semaphores, isn't really going to port very well to user-space. At least not directly, I would not think. But on numerous occasions I have wanted the kernel's barriers, atomic operations, bitwise operations, or some of the compiler things we implement (likely, unlikely, fixes) in user-space. > Now, clearly I can do this under the GPL. However, I think it would > be more useful to have the library under the LGPL, which requires > either getting the permission of the authors of the kernel files, or > rewriting them from scratch. FWIW, you have my permission. I've touched spinlock.h a bunch. Robert Love