Re: [PATCH 3/3] kref: Remove the memory barriers

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 11:20:16AM +0100, Oliver Neukum wrote:
> Am Montag, 12. Dezember 2011, 10:57:31 schrieb Ming Lei:
> > On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 4:54 PM, Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2011-12-12 at 11:48 +0800, Ming Lei wrote:
> > >> For kref, maybe it is still multiple operations done on one cpu vs them
> > >> being visible on another, but seems a bit implicit, see the common kref
> > >> usage below:
> > >>
> > >> CPU0                            CPU1
> > >>                                         A:kref_init(&obj->ref)
> > >
> > > how does CPU0 get a ref to obj?
> > 
> > Suppose open/close/read/.. context is run on CPU0, and driver .probe/.release
> > context(hotplug context) is run on CPU1. There are a few examples on
> > usb driver(eg. usb-skeleton.c, ...)
> 
> USB generally relies on an implied barrier just as:
> 
>         /* we can register the device now, as it is ready */
>         retval = usb_register_dev(interface, &skel_class);
> 
> Generally reference counting cannot help you if kfree() is involved

So, Oliver, you don't have any objection to this patch removing the
barriers in kref, right?  Originally you added them, I just wanted to
make sure before I applied this.

thanks,

greg k-h