Subject: Re: [PATCH] net: ethtool: avoid rebuilds on UTS_RELEASE change

From: Jakub Kicinski <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2024 11:23:09 -0800

On Tue, 20 Feb 2024 20:42:44 +0100 Jann Horn wrote:
> Currently, when you switch between branches or something like that and
> rebuild, net/ethtool/ioctl.c has to be built again because it depends
> on UTS_RELEASE.
> 
> By instead referencing a string variable stored in another object file,
> this can be avoided.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Jann Horn <[email-masked]>
> ---
> (alternatively we could also use the utsname info from the current UTS
> namespace, but that'd be a bit of a behavior change, and I wanted to
> keep this change a no-op)

Is this related to John's work from:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email-masked]/
?