From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752857AbXCLUPd (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:15:33 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752860AbXCLUPd (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:15:33 -0400 Received: from ns.suse.de ([195.135.220.2]:36872 "EHLO mx1.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752857AbXCLUPc convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:15:32 -0400 From: Oliver Neukum Organization: Novell To: Alan Stern Subject: Re: refcounting drivers' data structures used in sysfs buffers Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 21:15:31 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 Cc: Dmitry Torokhov , Maneesh Soni , gregkh@suse.de, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200703122115.32971.oneukum@suse.de> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Am Montag, 12. März 2007 21:03 schrieb Alan Stern: > On Mon, 12 Mar 2007, Oliver Neukum wrote: > > > > > I don't like reverting my own code. But I predict he'll tell you that a > > > > driver's bond with a device should be represented in a data structure > > > > that is to be refcounted. > > > > > > :-) > > > > Coming to think about it, he might be right there. > > There still would be a synchronization problem. Refcounts don't solve > races; they only solve lifetime problems. And you would still have to > change the sysfs API, plus all the other stuff... > > Do you think Linus would listen if all three of us (plus maybe Greg) tried > to convince him? No. He'd tell you that a crap API should be changed. Regards Oliver