Subject: Re: include/linux/pcounter.h

From: Ingo Molnar <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:36:50 +0100

* David Miller <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > but the main and fundamental question still remains unanswered (more 
> > than 3 weeks after Andrew asked that question): why was this piece 
> > of general infrastructure merged via net.git and not submitted to 
> > lkml ever? The code touching -mm does _not_ count as "review".
> 
> I already stated this was a mistake and it won't happen again in the 
> future.

sorry - that bit of the thread didnt seem to make it to lkml. I just saw 
this incomplete discussion with a denial and with no resolution.

And you did the right thing anyway by thinking in terms of a generic 
piece of infrastructure instead of hiding it away into say 
include/net/pcounter.h (which nobody could have objected against).

I sometimes think that the forced isolation of subsystems (rather 
strongly enforced both by -mm and by linux-next) and their hiding away 
on non-lkml lists will eventually hurt the core kernel because less and 
less people will be willing to go the trouble of doing proper 
cross-subsystem development. That results in duplicated or specialistic 
infrastructure, increased code size and longer term, ultimately less 
performance. (by the time we notice _that_ it will probably be too late 
to do anything about it)

	Ingo