On Wed, 13 Nov 2024, Thorsten Glaser wrote: > > But, as has been pointed out, if we make the current alignment explicit > everywhere, the kernel ABI does not have to change¹. And new syscalls, > ioctls, structs, etc. can just be made with natural alignment in mind (I > bet most are already anyway) and with padding assumptions made expli‐ > cit (which again probably is done already anyway). >
Yes, upstream developers can be expected accept patches that make explicit the alignment of struct members. That's what I've been saying for years. Luckily, that doesn't require a new ABI. It does require volunteers who are willing to write and submit patches for those packages that matter to users. And that is the real problem: the manpower shortage. The only solution I proposed for that problem was better collaboration and better allocation of resources. But his straight-forward request for assistance was an excellent idea of Adrian's: https://lists.debian.org/debian-68k/2024/11/msg00007.html
