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Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 20:12:22 -0400
From: Theodore Tso <tytso@mit.edu>
To: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>,
       Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com>,
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       "Randy.Dunlap" <rdunlap@xenotime.net>, akpm@osdl.org,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, libc-alpha@sourceware.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Use uname not sysctl to get the kernel revision
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On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 01:31:46AM +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:
> 
> glibc still works, just slower. But I think the best strategy 
> is just to emulate the single sysctl glibc is using and printk
> for the rest.
> 

That sounds reasonable, yes.


> > point is moot.  But at the same time, what is the cost of leaving
> > sys_sysctl in the kernel for an extra 6-12 months, or even longer,
> > starting from now?  
>
> The numerical namespace for sysctl is unsalvagable imho. e.g. distributions
> regularly break it because there is no central repository of numbers
> so it's not very usable anyways in practice.

That may be true, but it doesn't answer the question, what's the cost
of leaving in sys_sysctl in there for now?  

In any case, if we really do want to get rid of it, the next step
should be a working deprecation printk and adding something to
Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt.

						- Ted