From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from galois.linutronix.de (Galois.linutronix.de [193.142.43.55]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7974039BFE2; Fri, 27 Mar 2026 12:27:34 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=193.142.43.55 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1774614455; cv=none; b=CJWXfaQuqtd/b5MGtrea4qAE4iOnoEq6dgDygN0NXmPzPjr/URkPzk4LBgWjk/Povbmo3tBWM5dSJ30ClrwLpuFHzkK6uMCQefTr0DNZPGhzS5LsaUv3U52lw/FZOhQjiTEWNQ0fbtChPnfPgbH3h6TJzcZSHWYIw5gqpEpwJfY= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1774614455; c=relaxed/simple; bh=xFOV8aaDXh7WZIERIMzvbgvKcud+c9QBrNKJN4ZQ4fU=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:In-Reply-To:References:Date:Message-ID: MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=bon+g7ft1LbdQd5sY61R2oi787Xtu4dBxRzrwPZ1kbzKNeEx/5jdavv+zfAYIHsY4wGiu6iPyiyxo83p8TSRu2T9Xl5YKmN1G+LMMExgAbodD06FRsaJO/CwbhPjPrPHJF/D15ZKUqCgWQmPN/Caa7kcXV2vf6DbuQDW2TlklhY= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=linutronix.de; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=linutronix.de; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=linutronix.de header.i=@linutronix.de header.b=l+LLIfZy; dkim=permerror (0-bit key) header.d=linutronix.de header.i=@linutronix.de header.b=fWjMkhws; arc=none smtp.client-ip=193.142.43.55 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=linutronix.de Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=linutronix.de Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=linutronix.de header.i=@linutronix.de header.b="l+LLIfZy"; dkim=permerror (0-bit key) header.d=linutronix.de header.i=@linutronix.de header.b="fWjMkhws" From: Nam Cao DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=linutronix.de; s=2020; t=1774614447; h=from:from:reply-to:subject:subject:date:date:message-id:message-id: to:to:cc:cc:mime-version:mime-version:content-type:content-type: in-reply-to:in-reply-to:references:references; bh=lzEFKnBhxHaS9x50NKoJGALUwHrUCjFi2x+ZMkq4iEY=; b=l+LLIfZy/bnYTaT5MnKDRebxlWltqbiwK9bhO+imF/7qjYRaTsAM0IgNcSCxdHocnTpBDT /flJlvKxA5gCHsflY7bzRIWQWWyXx7ZN+SrlbyMoZzc3Biv1dgvvA3AB4Q6mTSZtIC8N7Z ZyiDkPcOG0eIHky6SviDLgPyi0awb1qzB1UJCl7g92t/PlbKCKR7aiWcq0DyiONQnc23WT 0y9rL96UgjPX0oBdbsmkIByWa6lXsGL8Z1Z50OODZuX4BvwOp49+iWRMK0YhRYwqUP0miK 8/o8Ieny+w43L8pQxkaAoCde1N5l1YQWhwbz4Al9YTWXd1rnEgaGubMtovQQVA== DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=ed25519-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=linutronix.de; s=2020e; t=1774614447; h=from:from:reply-to:subject:subject:date:date:message-id:message-id: to:to:cc:cc:mime-version:mime-version:content-type:content-type: in-reply-to:in-reply-to:references:references; bh=lzEFKnBhxHaS9x50NKoJGALUwHrUCjFi2x+ZMkq4iEY=; b=fWjMkhwsvTGbz6n+Dvf74BVGMNJJR+mRZuq79DIvP1I8QgbmFe1Q4ys6ZB+aYu54dh71d3 aoVb1YTkctsi2sDw== To: Petr Pavlu , Greg Kroah-Hartman Cc: linux-modules@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Luis Chamberlain , Daniel Gomez , Sami Tolvanen , Aaron Tomlin , Shyam Saini , Kees Cook , Thorsten Blum , Christoph Hellwig Subject: Re: [PATCH] module: remove MODULE_VERSION() In-Reply-To: References: <2026031341-evolve-repeater-987b@gregkh> Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:27:26 +0100 Message-ID: <87cy0p5ufl.fsf@yellow.woof> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Petr Pavlu writes: > On 3/13/26 3:20 PM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: >> Module "versions" do not make sense as the kernel is built all at once, >> the "version" is the overall kernel version number, so modules can not >> really be described as having a unique version given that they rely on >> the infrastructure of the whole kernel. >> >> For now, just make this an "empty" define, to keep existing code >> building properly as the tree is slowly purged of the use of this over >> time. >> >> This macro will be removed entirely in the future when there are no >> in-tree users. ... > The original patch "Add a MODULE_VERSION macro" [1] from 2004 doesn't > say much about the motivation for adding module versions, but it does > mention that they should be accessible via sysfs. That was implemented > a year later in commit c988d2b28454 ("[PATCH] modules: add version and > srcversion to sysfs") [2], which primarily discusses use cases related > to DKMS, and to administrators + tech support needing to know what is > actually loaded on the system. For the latter, I believe srcversion (or > something similar) should be sufficient. I develop an external module. And our userspace program does rely on this to get the module's version on the user's system. This patch would break our program. I can change to use a different mechanism. But surely I am not the only one who write something that rely on this. Best regards, Nam