Re: [PATCH] MAINTAINERS: Add a guideline on notification of new userspace API/ABI elements

[Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>]

On Monday 07 March 2011, Joe Perches wrote:
> Hey David.
> 
> Is there some list of files that are more likely to
> trigger this?
> 
> Maybe add a section like:
> 
> USERSPACE ABI/API INTERFACES
> L:      linux-api@vger.kernel.org
> F:      include/asm-generic/errno*.h
> F:      include/linux/capability.h
> F:      include/linux/compat.h
> F:      include/linux/syscalls.h
> F:      include/*/unistd.h

syscalls.h and compat.h are not really the user space ABI,
as user applications don't use those headers to link to
the kernel.

> Maybe add some arch wildcards?
> 
> F:      arch/*/include/asm/errno.h
> F:      arch/*/include/asm/unistd.h
> 
> Maybe add fs?
> 
> F:      fs/compat*.c
> 
> There's probably a bunch of others.
> Suggestions?
> 

I think you can add the entire asm-generic directory. The majority
of the changes in there are to exported files, so they impact
the ABI. For a specific list, you'd have to go through all the
files listed as exported in include/{linux,asm-generic}/Kbuild.

	Arnd