Re: kernel structures in 2.0.29->2.0.30

Raul Miller (rdm@test.legislate.com)
Sat, 26 Apr 1997 01:54:05 -0400

> ...Raul Miller says...:
> > A better way of describing it is that the kernel module system
> > is a view into the guts of Linux. As Linux evolves, the view
> > is subject to change. This should not surprise anyone.

On Apr 25, Gordon Oliver wrote
> What is surprising, and bad, is that the data changes between stable
> versions. Unfortunately, if the internals of a structure change there
> is no way to correctly handle that for a module if it accesses that
> structure. If the module were written to handle this case, it might work,
> but the penalty would be huge. Imagine a file system that cannot directly
> access an inode.

(1) It should be possible to ignore newer releases if, what you really
want is no change.

(2) It should be possible to recompile the binary afs module, if what
transarc really wants is to support linux. [I disbelieve the
implication that the code base is so poor that recompilation + test
suite is a laborous process.]

(3) It should be possible for someone to hack together a wrapper for
the older module. This would translate between the new data
structures and the old at function invocation and return time. [Yes,
there's a performance penalty, yes it's work].

If you don't like option 2 or 3, why not try option 1?

I really don't see why you shouldn't be able to benefit from not
upgrading if not upgrading is what you really want to do. At worst
you have to buy another site license from Linus...

-- 
Raul