Re: Modutils 2.5 change, start running this command now

[Keith Owens <kaos@ocs.com.au>]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2001 06:04:20 -0400, 
Benjamin LaHaise <bcrl@redhat.com> wrote:
>On Thu, Oct 11, 2001 at 09:45:58PM +1000, Keith Owens wrote:
>> In current modutils, a module that does not export symbols and does not
>> say EXPORT_NO_SYMBOLS will default to exporting all symbols.  This is a
>> hangover from kernel 2.0 and will be removed when modutils 2.5 appears,
>> shortly after the kernel 2.5 branch is created.
>> 
>> Starting with modutils 2.5, modules must explicitly say what their
>> intention is for symbols.  That will break a lot of existing modules.
>
>Isn't EXPORT_NO_SYMBOLS the default case for 99.44% of modules?  It seems 
>to me that the lameness incurred in adding an EXPORT_NO_SYMBOLS line to 
>each and every driver that one writes is a pointless additional hoop to 
>jump through.  I'd rather break the modules that are relying on behaviour 
>that was deprecated several *years* ago than go through another make-work 
>project.

I was going to do it that way.  The problem is that it gives no
indication if the module has been checked or not.  Adding
EXPORT_NO_SYMBOLS says that somebody has reviewed the module and
decided that exporting no symbols is the correct behaviour.  It is the
difference between no maintainer and a maintained module.