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

From: Dave Jones <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:25:58 -0500

On Tue, Nov 27, 2007 at 10:09:42PM +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote:
 > On Tue, Nov 27, 2007 at 02:00:37PM -0500, Dave Jones wrote:
 > > On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 10:25:33AM -0800, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
 > >  
 > >  > 1) Why is everyone so concerned that export symbol space is large?
 > >  > 	- does it cost cpu or running memory?
 > >  > 	- does it cause bugs?
 > >  > 	- or are you just worried about "evil modules"?
 > > 
 > > To clarify something here, by "evil", don't necessarily think "binary only". 
 > > 
 > > Out of tree modules are frequently using symbols that they shouldn't be.
 > > Because they get no peer-review here, they 'get away with it' for the most part.
 > > Until distro vendors push rebased kernel updates that removed exports that
 > > should never have been exported, and suddenly people like me get bombed
 > > with "Fedora broke my xyz driver" mails.
 > >...
 > 
 > The real problem is that these drivers are not in the upstream kernel.

You're preaching to the choir.

 > Are there common reasons why these drivers are not upstream?

It varies case by case.

	Dave

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