From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Tue, 15 May 2001 17:58:28 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Tue, 15 May 2001 17:58:19 -0400 Received: from neon-gw.transmeta.com ([209.10.217.66]:6412 "EHLO neon-gw.transmeta.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Tue, 15 May 2001 17:58:00 -0400 Message-ID: <3B01A649.A51E54DE@transmeta.com> Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 14:57:29 -0700 From: "H. Peter Anvin" Organization: Transmeta Corporation X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.5-pre1-zisofs i686) X-Accept-Language: en, sv, no, da, es, fr, ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Alexander Viro CC: Chip Salzenberg , Linus Torvalds , Alan Cox , Neil Brown , Jeff Garzik , Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: LANANA: To Pending Device Number Registrants In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Alexander Viro wrote: > > On Tue, 15 May 2001, Chip Salzenberg wrote: > > > According to Linus Torvalds: > > > I don't see why we couldn't expose the "driver name" for any file > > > descriptor. > > > > Is it wise to assume that there is only one such name for *any* file > > descriptor? > > Type of filesystem where the file came from? Sure. > I think this is the wrong question. A device can inherently belong to multiple device classes, and it really should be thought of as such. For example a disk may belong, at the same time, to the "scsi", "disk" and "scsi-disk" device classes, meaning that it supports the union of the "scsi" common interfaces, "disk" common interfaces, and "scsi-disk" common interfaces. -hpa -- at work, in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot." http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt