Hi Greg, > When you guys go on these "make needlessly global code static" kicks > you should maybe consider that even functions that aren't currently > used by any other area of the tree might be useful for module writers. > > Instead of just checking which functions are currently used by other > parts of the kernel perhaps you should think about what makes a > logical API and stick to that, even if not all of the functions are > currently used.
I'd second that. Cleanups are good and I do not deny that Adrian Bunk has been doing a terrific work. However, unexporting or removing functions just because they have no current user in the kernel tree is not always a clever thing to do. Keeping things square and logical should be taken into consideration, as should the possibility that some function might be used outside of the kernel tree. I do *not* mean entire interfaces only used outside of the kernel tree, because these are highly questionable, but functions that are part of a larger set of functions representing an interface, most of which are used inside the kernel. In this specific case, dropping exports or removing functions make very little sense to me and is sometimes calling for trouble, as Greg just underlined. In some cases, the functions are likely to be reintroduced/reexported a few months later and we certainly could use our time in a more useful way than undoing and redoing things. Thanks, -- Jean Delvare - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
