Re: sysctl

From: David KOENIG
Date: Wed Oct 18 2006 - 14:28:09 EST


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Albert Cahalan wrote:
> In the wireless-extensions thread, Linus writes:
>
>> In general, the answer to "when can we break user space" is very simple.
>>
>> Never.
>>
>> It's just not acceptable. We maintain old interfaces for years (and in
>> some cases, well over a decade by now), simply because the pain from not
>> doing so is horrendous, and it makes debugging impossible. You get into
>> situations where users need to upgrade to tools that don't work with
>> older
>> kernels, and can thus not downgrade, etc etc.
>
> I guess the sysctl question has been answered then,
> especially since random normal apps use sysctl.
>
> If it needs a maintainer, put me down.
>
> I think the main problem was fixed long ago,
> by assigning fixed numbers to the enum values.
> Practically no other kernel code uses an enum
> for an ABI, and I think we can see why.
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
How about rewriting sysctl so that it refers to the real way (with /proc)?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFNnIQmhCgVPlWJY8RAiTCAKDUtO4L7XqWo7+vC2vlhltdcb/L3ACfXSeM
Ii48VQu3334MkrGc23StPSA=
=pcCo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/