Re: [PATCH v3] Many pages: Document fixed-width types with ISO C naming - Greg Kroah-Hartman

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
To: Alejandro Colomar <alx.manpages@gmail.com>
Cc: Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@gmail.com>,
	Alex Colomar <alx@kernel.org>,
	Alexei Starovoitov <ast@kernel.org>,
	linux-man <linux-man@vger.kernel.org>,
	Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>,
	Zack Weinberg <zackw@panix.com>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	glibc <libc-alpha@sourceware.org>, GCC <gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org>,
	bpf <bpf@vger.kernel.org>, LTP List <ltp@lists.linux.it>,
	Linux API <linux-api@vger.kernel.org>,
	linux-arch <linux-arch@vger.kernel.org>,
	David Laight <David.Laight@aculab.com>,
	Joseph Myers <joseph@codesourcery.com>,
	Florian Weimer <fweimer@redhat.com>,
	Cyril Hrubis <chrubis@suse.cz>,
	David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>,
	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>, Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>,
	Adhemerval Zanella <adhemerval.zanella@linaro.org>,
	Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] Many pages: Document fixed-width types with ISO C naming
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2022 07:57:23 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <YwcPQ987poRYjfoL@kroah.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <c06008bc-0c13-12f1-df85-3814b74e47f9@gmail.com>

On Thu, Aug 25, 2022 at 01:36:10AM +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> But from your side what do we have?  Just direct NAKs without much
> explanation.  The only one who gave some explanation was Greg, and he
> vaguely pointed to Linus's comments about it in the past, with no precise
> pointer to it.  I investigated a lot before v2, and could not find anything
> strong enough to recommend using kernel types in user space, so I pushed v2,
> and the discussion was kept.

So despite me saying that "this is not ok", and many other maintainers
saying "this is not ok", you applied a patch with our objections on it?
That is very odd and a bit rude.

> I would like that if you still oppose to the patch, at least were able to
> provide some facts to this discussion.

The fact is that the kernel can not use the namespace that userspace has
with ISO C names.  It's that simple as the ISO standard does NOT
describe the variable types for an ABI that can cross the user/kernel
boundry.

Work with the ISO C standard if you wish to document such type usage,
and get it approved and then we would be willing to consider such a
change.  But until then, we have to stick to our variable name types,
just like all other operating systems have to (we are not alone here.)

Please revert your change.

greg k-h