Re: -mm merge plans for 2.6.21

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 17:35:35 +0000
David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 15:07 -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > lutimesat-simplify-utime2.patch
> > lutimesat-extend-do_utimes-with-flags.patch
> > lutimesat-actual-syscall-and-wire-up-on-i386.patch
> > 
> >  Do we want this?  Ulrich says so.  Will merge, I guess.
> 
> I would strongly recommend that in the general case, you don't merge new
> system calls unless the corresponding compat_ system call is
> implemented.

Good point.

> This makes sure that people adding system calls will design the API for
> the new system call appropriately, rather than trying to implement
> compat support as an afterthought and only then realising that they wish
> the original had been done differently. We've seen examples of this
> where it would have been _trivial_ to adjust the API slightly to make
> compat syscalls a non-issue, but the developer just didn't _think_ about
> it until the syscall was set in stone.
> 
> This new system call seems to need compat_ support but lacks it, so I
> would suggest you shouldn't merge it just yet.

OK, thanks.