Re: RELEASE BLOCKER: Linux doesn't follow x86/x86-64 ABI wrt direction flag

NightStrike
2008-03-06T15:37:36Z

On 3/6/08, Olivier Galibert <galibert@pobox.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 05:12:07PM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > It's a kernel bug, and it needs to be fixed.
>
> I'm not convinced. It's been that way for 15 years, it's that way in
> the BSD kernels, at that point it's a feature. The bug is in the
> documentation, nowhere else. And in gcc for blindly trusting the
> documentation.

The issue should not be evaluated as: "It's always been that way,
therefore, it's right." Instead, it should be: "What's the right way
to do it?"

You don't just change documentation because no existing code meets the
requirement -- UNLESS -- the non-conforming code is actually the right
way to do things.