Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC] [1/9] Core module symbol namespaces code and intro.

From: Rusty Russell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:25:11 +1100

On Thursday 22 November 2007 22:05:45 Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 22, 2007 at 02:56:22PM +1100, Rusty Russell wrote:
> >     This is an interesting idea, thanks for the code!  My only question
> > is whether we can get most of this benefit by dropping the indirection of
> > namespaces and have something like "EXPORT_SYMBOL_TO(sym, modname)"?  It
> > doesn't work so well for exporting to a group of modules, but that seems
> > a reasonable line to draw anyway.
>
> I'd say exporting to a group of modules is the main use case.  E.g. in
> scsi there would be symbols exported to transport class modules only
> or lots of the vfs_ symbols would be exported only to stackable filesystems
> or nfsd.

That's my point.  If there's a whole class of modules which can use a symbol, 
why are we ruling out external modules?  If that's what you want, why not 
have a list of permitted modules compiled into the kernel and allow no 
others?

Cheers,
Rusty.