From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S267669AbUHJTS6 (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:18:58 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267677AbUHJTRH (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:17:07 -0400 Received: from umhlanga.stratnet.net ([12.162.17.40]:61293 "EHLO umhlanga.STRATNET.NET") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S267669AbUHJTQL (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:16:11 -0400 To: Lee Revell Cc: Dave Hansen , Josh Aas , Linux Kernel Mailing List , steiner@sgi.com Subject: Re: bkl cleanup in do_sysctl X-Message-Flag: Warning: May contain useful information References: <4118FE9D.2050304@sgi.com> <1092158905.11212.18.camel@nighthawk> <1092163919.782.54.camel@mindpipe> From: Roland Dreier Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:16:08 -0700 In-Reply-To: <1092163919.782.54.camel@mindpipe> (Lee Revell's message of "Tue, 10 Aug 2004 14:51:59 -0400") Message-ID: <52n0126byf.fsf@topspin.com> User-Agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) XEmacs/21.4 (Security Through Obscurity, linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-OriginalArrivalTime: 10 Aug 2004 19:16:08.0342 (UTC) FILETIME=[7D677B60:01C47F0E] Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Lee> Someone once suggested that newbies who show up on LKML Lee> wanting to learn kernel hacking should be assigned to find Lee> one use of the BKL and replace it with proper locking. Unfortunately most of the remaining BKL uses seem to be very subtle. Removing lock_kernel() correctly requires a deep understanding of the global locking semantics and may be very invasive. In the end it's also hard to be sure bugs haven't been introduced. Lee> For example reiserfs uses the BKL for all write locking (!), Lee> but it probably would not be too hard to fix, because you can Lee> just look at another filesystem that has proper locking. Fixing up a filesystem's write locking doesn't sound like a very good newbie project to me. - R.