From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261229AbVAGA3u (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Jan 2005 19:29:50 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261176AbVAGA3X (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Jan 2005 19:29:23 -0500 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:42973 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261190AbVAGAZD (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Jan 2005 19:25:03 -0500 Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 16:29:28 -0800 From: Andrew Morton To: Christoph Hellwig Cc: viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk, paulmck@us.ibm.com, arjan@infradead.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, jtk@us.ibm.com, wtaber@us.ibm.com, pbadari@us.ibm.com, markv@us.ibm.com, greghk@us.ibm.com, torvalds@osdl.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] fs: Restore files_lock and set_fs_root exports Message-Id: <20050106162928.650e9d71.akpm@osdl.org> In-Reply-To: <20050106234123.GA27869@infradead.org> References: <20050106190538.GB1618@us.ibm.com> <1105039259.4468.9.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <20050106201531.GJ1292@us.ibm.com> <20050106203258.GN26051@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk> <20050106210408.GM1292@us.ibm.com> <20050106212417.GQ26051@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk> <20050106152621.395f935e.akpm@osdl.org> <20050106234123.GA27869@infradead.org> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.7 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i586-pc-linux-gnu) 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 Christoph Hellwig wrote: > > > I think the exports should be restored. So does Linus ("Not that I like it > > all that much, but I don't think we should break existing modules unless we > > have a very specific reason to break just those modules."). > > No. I specificly asked the question how they're using it and they're use is > > a) completely buggy > b) poking so deep in the kernel that the user falls under the GPL > derived works clause. As a copyright holder of quite a bit of fs/*.c > I certainly wouldn't give IBM a special exception to use it even if > it was exported. > > These exports were only added for intermezzo during 2.4.x and with the > removal of intermezzo they go. They never were a public API, and that they > were needed at all was a managment mistake in how that code was merged. Fine. Completely agree. Sometimes people do need to be forced to make such changes - I don't think anyone would disagree with that. What's under discussion here is "how to do it". Do we just remove things when we notice them, or do we give (say) 12 months notice?