Re: What is struct pci_driver.owner for?

[Russell King <rmk+lkml@arm.linux.org.uk>]

On Tue, Oct 18, 2005 at 01:59:08PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2005 at 04:53:36PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > Roland Dreier wrote:
> > >I just noticed that at some point, struct pci_driver grew a .owner
> > >member.  However, only a handful of drivers set it:
> > >
> > >    $ grep -r -A10 pci_driver drivers/ | grep owner
> > >    drivers/block/sx8.c-    .owner          = THIS_MODULE,
> > >    drivers/ieee1394/pcilynx.c-     .owner =           THIS_MODULE,
> > >    drivers/net/spider_net.c-       .owner          = THIS_MODULE,
> > >    drivers/video/imsttfb.c-        .owner          = THIS_MODULE,
> > >    drivers/video/kyro/fbdev.c-     .owner          = THIS_MODULE,
> > >    drivers/video/tridentfb.c-      .owner  = THIS_MODULE,
> > >
> > >Should all drivers be setting .owner = THIS_MODULE?  Is this a good
> > >kernel janitors task?
> > 
> > In theory its for module refcounting.  With so many PCI drivers and so 
> > few pci_driver::owner users, it makes me wonder how needed it is.
> 
> It might in the future be needed for refcounting, I originally added it
> when I thought it was needed.

Note that both pci_driver and pci_driver.driver both have an "owner"
field.  One should go - there's no point needlessly duplicating stuff
like this.

-- 
Russell King
 Linux kernel    2.6 ARM Linux   - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/
 maintainer of:  2.6 Serial core