From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1758164AbZA1U7I (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:59:08 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1760027AbZA1Uqr (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:46:47 -0500 Received: from earthlight.etchedpixels.co.uk ([81.2.110.250]:44368 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1760020AbZA1Uqp (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:46:45 -0500 Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:47:05 +0000 From: Alan Cox To: bmckinlay@perle.com Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH 60/80] tty: extract the pty init time special cases Message-ID: <20090128204705.7140d5fd@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> In-Reply-To: References: <20090122124042.7251ff0f@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.5.0 (GTK+ 2.12.12; x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) Organization: Red Hat UK Cyf., Amberley Place, 107-111 Peascod Street, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 1TE, Y Deyrnas Gyfunol. Cofrestrwyd yng Nghymru a Lloegr o'r rhif cofrestru 3798903 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > So you are saying that if I merge my ptyx module into the kernel tree THEN > these > exports would be added? They would have to be, since I would still want It would then seem reasonable to do so > my > driver to be a module instead of statically linked with the kernel like > pty is. Sure - although it might make more sense to add any neede features to the generic pty driver - hard to tell when you don't seem interested in discussing that. > I think the fact that you had to "ask at the time what other PTY drivers > there > were" indicates that these symbols should have been simply exported to > avoid > any problems with out of tree PTY drivers. The linux kernel doesn't carry extra symbols for out of tree drivers. Why should it - even keeping an index of them would be hard and it would be impossible to know which ones are in use. Plus they change regularly - the tty layer will change further soon for example, it's just having a settling in period before the next big changes. > By not exporting these symbols it means that the Linux kernel is now > forcing > anyone who wants to develop a PTY type TTY driver to be merged into the > kernel > tree by not exporting these TTY functions. This doesn't seem very "open > and > flexible". No you can provide the GPL symbol exports with the same patch as your pty driver. There are millions of Linux users and each unused EXPORT_SYMBOL costs memory to all those people - why should they carry that burden ? Alan