Re: [PATCH] kernel: sysctl: make drop_caches write-only

[Chris Down]

Hm, not sure why my client didn't show this reply.

Andrew Morton writes:
> Risk: some (odd) userspace code will break.  Fixable by manually chmodding
> it back again.

The only scenario I can construct in my head is that someone has built 
something to watch drop_caches for modification, but we already have the kmsg 
output for that.

> Reward: very little.
>
> Is the reward worth the risk?

There is evidence that this has already caused confusion[0] for many, judging 
by the number of views and votes. I think the reward is higher than stated 
here, since it makes the intent and lack of persistent API in the API clearer, 
and less likely to cause confusion in future.

0: https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/17936/10762