Re: Fixing the main programmer thinko with the device model

Kay Sievers
2008-03-26T05:08:17Z

On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 21:16 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:57:32AM +0100, Andi Kleen wrote:
> > James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> writes:
> > >
> > > That's true, but irrelevant (and also soon to be untrue if we get rid of
> > > the scsi_device class as you and Kay keep requesting). The two calls
> > > release references on the actual embedded generic device, it's nothing
> > > to do with entangled lifetime rules.
> >
> > <heretic thought>Has anybody ever considered just doing away with
> > the problematic and bug prone and tricky reference counts for kobjects
> > and switch to a simple garbage collector for them?
>
> Sure, I have no objection to that. It's just that the reference count
> "issue" really doesn't seem to be one on sanely designed busses :)

Hmm, what is a "﻿simple garbage collector" here? How could one determine
"reachability" of objects, means: at what point of time do objects
actually become "garbage"? How could one trace in our current kernel
code who still accesses an object, without doing refcounts?

Kay