From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754478AbcBZK6L (ORCPT ); Fri, 26 Feb 2016 05:58:11 -0500 Received: from bear.ext.ti.com ([192.94.94.41]:60764 "EHLO bear.ext.ti.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754044AbcBZK6H (ORCPT ); Fri, 26 Feb 2016 05:58:07 -0500 Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] video/fbdev: avoid module usage in non-modular sparc code To: Paul Gortmaker , References: <1456110792-21771-1-git-send-email-paul.gortmaker@windriver.com> CC: "David S. Miller" , Jean-Christophe Plagniol-Villard , , From: Tomi Valkeinen Message-ID: <56D02FB8.90803@ti.com> Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 12:58:00 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.5.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <1456110792-21771-1-git-send-email-paul.gortmaker@windriver.com> Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="MPfmd7xTLfbLOLcfqcMIdQLw0jEA0eQw5" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org --MPfmd7xTLfbLOLcfqcMIdQLw0jEA0eQw5 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="n3hSwNTt54sEapiDHNUIguP5Sl9N4B5nF" From: Tomi Valkeinen To: Paul Gortmaker , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: "David S. Miller" , Jean-Christophe Plagniol-Villard , linux-fbdev@vger.kernel.org, sparclinux@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <56D02FB8.90803@ti.com> Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] video/fbdev: avoid module usage in non-modular sparc code References: <1456110792-21771-1-git-send-email-paul.gortmaker@windriver.com> In-Reply-To: <1456110792-21771-1-git-send-email-paul.gortmaker@windriver.com> --n3hSwNTt54sEapiDHNUIguP5Sl9N4B5nF Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 22/02/16 05:13, Paul Gortmaker wrote: > This series of commits is a part of a larger project to ensure > people don't reference modular support functions in non-modular > code. Overall there was roughly 5k lines of dead code in the > kernel due to this. So far we've fixed several areas, like tty, > x86, net, ... and we continue to work on other areas. >=20 > There are several reasons to not use module support for code that > can never be built as a module, but the big ones are: >=20 > (1) it is easy to accidentally write unused module_exit and remove cod= e > (2) it can be misleading when reading the source, thinking it can be > modular when the Makefile and/or Kconfig prohibit it > (3) it requires the include of the module.h header file which in turn > includes nearly everything else, thus adding to CPP overhead. > (4) it gets copied/replicated into other code and spreads like weeds. I think all the "normal" drivers should be compilable as modules. If they can't, it should be fixed. However, we have lots of old drivers for which it may be difficult to get anyone to fix them or test them. Then again, with that kind of drivers it may be better to just let them be, if there's no big reason to start cleaning them up. In other words, if the driver is old and not actively developed/maintained, compiles fine, presumably works fine, doesn't obstruct any other development, then why touch it at all... While doing this, did you just go forward removing the module support, or did you check if it would be trivial to make the driver build as a module? I wouldn't be surprised if in some cases all that would need to be done is change the Kconfig's bool to tristate. Tomi --n3hSwNTt54sEapiDHNUIguP5Sl9N4B5nF-- --MPfmd7xTLfbLOLcfqcMIdQLw0jEA0eQw5 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJW0C+5AAoJEPo9qoy8lh71mvcP/RVeIwt3scrHgn6Ux/EJUff0 wwA+TGlTCyLIw8W+24bmkbFY2HJj04IuDop5zgi6xJlV/p6yLwAhlG5hmYCxNbu1 EfpMX78XB4v+JGPzj72nHq7u5nnUT2VhTCBUYazEWQ7zOk+4qJb3Q3q5dw2NlcCf 6q2FcbapzmiUYRda6gtTYaKws0Xk5fsfLBw7mCzPKxS1loX9NathFvQZ50HqdXNt p33vv+4m2AgtMNHvo5G/VyQBmLYOVw7IHOrajP7sZWQEwT+OBjYcJwQ6a4vLe429 dd2QVRMGyOqE8PcPqnDQl41pQjlQfuMA2/O8G6GV8IZlb70vME6iVc1suokLn0Mt mdMWiX9AMbMk8xTrBNyhX9O40ZnHDqKzPN3rdKcXUetpy4sOHpPmXB3UYjMxd2p1 zaNifjQpYfR26G76W7vW4jYieBzkRR0mvu/9j5q/gSeRrEnNrOt58J5TN6uqzRqI PIpVyE9C68/YhmhKczoA//NYtk5TMkcWz8e2tIaGvG0gyXlSkg9BYd7mQjboZ1fe hcTsyiceN6MpyzlA/5w7U5jsgSWyqzJdIY/6wzY92AiGnzzcuvfpI2qt+522jCvl bsAzppWL6dIrxT9c67k0F7ATLCe+npw/gnok72huMg25rR5zxWlWtvC09krPVOvV Oyg3MY3n4YZ6V7a6v/UK =R8Cm -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --MPfmd7xTLfbLOLcfqcMIdQLw0jEA0eQw5--