From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262918AbTEGGho (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 May 2003 02:37:44 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262928AbTEGGho (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 May 2003 02:37:44 -0400 Received: from pizda.ninka.net ([216.101.162.242]:55277 "EHLO pizda.ninka.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262918AbTEGGhn (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 May 2003 02:37:43 -0400 Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 22:42:39 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <20030506.224239.15246035.davem@redhat.com> To: hch@infradead.org Cc: dwmw2@infradead.org, thomas@horsten.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] 2.4.21-rc1: byteorder.h breaks with __STRICT_ANSI__ defined (trivial) From: "David S. Miller" In-Reply-To: <20030507074111.A9109@infradead.org> References: <20030507072830.A7586@infradead.org> <20030506.222729.35034981.davem@redhat.com> <20030507074111.A9109@infradead.org> X-FalunGong: Information control. X-Mailer: Mew version 2.1 on Emacs 21.1 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: Christoph Hellwig Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 07:41:11 +0100 If we have kernel declaration in those ABI headers you'd need an updated abi-headers package for each change in one of your prototypes, rendering it almost useless. This reminds me about why this topic is actually a sticky area. The main argument goes like this, I compile glibc against kernel headers FOO therefore it is illegal to update headers that user apps could see (without rebuilding GLIBC against them first) because this could indirectly change glibc "stuff". For this to work you really need two classes of headers, one the defines ABIs and only ABIs and one that's for all kernel internal stuff. I agree that this kind of splitup is desirable. As I mentioned, things like {linux,net}/xfrm.h are probably the best model. Thanks for reminding me about this, I'll start to split rtnetlink.h and friends up.