Re: [RFC] Add kernel<->userspace ABI stability documentation

Greg KH
2006-02-27T19:11:08Z

On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 08:08:18PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 11:01 -0800, Greg KH wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > As has been noticed recently by a lot of different people, it seems like
> > we are breaking the userspace<->kernelspace interface a lot. Well, in
> > looking back over time, we always have been doing this, but no one seems
> > to notice (proc files changing format and location, netlink library
> > bindings, etc.)
>
>
> 2 remarks
>
> 1) it would make sense to keep track of "removed" interfaces as well

Good idea, removed/ should be where things go to after obsolete so
people can find things in the future.

> 2) the per interface description needs a "depends on config option"
> field; not all options are always there, but depend on a config option
> to be set. It makes a lot of sense to mark these as such so that users
> KNOW they have to deal with the interface not being there occasionally,
> depending on the kernel.

Hm, almost _everything_ is configurable these days, including sysfs. Do
we really want to keep the config value in sync with the kernel config
system too? I can add it, but it seems a bit unnecessary.

thanks for the quick feedback.

greg k-h