Re: [PATCH] Make GFP_DMA allocations w/o ZONE_DMA emit a warning instead of failing

[Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2011, David Rientjes wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Jun 2011, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> 
> > > That is NOT an unreasonable request, but it seems that its far too much
> > > to ask of you.
> > 
> > Full ack.
> > 
> > David,
> > 
> > stop that nonsense already. You changed the behaviour and broke stuff
> > which was working fine before for whatever reason. That behaviour was
> > in the kernel for ages and we tolerated the abuse.
> > 
> 
> Did I nack this patch and not realize it?

No, you did not realize anything.
 
> Does my patch fix the warning for pxaficp_ir that would still be emitted 
> with this patch?  If the driver uses GFP_DMA and nobody from the arm side 

Your patch does not fix anything. It papers over the problem and
that's the f@&^%%@^#ing wrong approach.

And just to be clear. You CANNOT fix a warning. You can fix the code
which causes the warning, but that's not what your patch is
doing. Your patch HIDES the problem.

> is prepared to remove it yet, then I'd suggest merging my patch until that 
> can be determined.  Otherwise, you have no guarantees about where the 
> memory is actually coming from.

Did you actually try to understand what I wrote? 

You decided that it's a BUG just because it should not be allowed. So
you changed the behaviour, which was perfectly fine before.

Now you try to paper over the problem by selecting ZONE_DMA and refuse
to give a grace period of _ONE_ kernel release.

IOW, you are preventing that the abusers of GFP_DMA are fixed
properly.

I can see that you neither have the bandwidth nor the knowledge to
analyse each user of GFP_DMA. And that should tell you something.

If you cannot fix it yourself, then f*(&!@$#ng not break it.

Thanks,

	tglx