Exchange with Arjan

Read from top to bottom.  He is being his usual friendly and cooperative self.

By the way, this is my favorite:

>to be
>honest, most of the function on the big list are "wrong api"... nothing in
>the kernel using them is a reasonably good sign of that after all.

Nothing in the kernel using them TODAY.  But if the need arises next month 
or next year then there will be yet another change to the kernel interface 
to bring back the one or two symbols that suddenly become useful.

The world view here is that the kernel source is the entire universe.

-- Dave

To: [email protected]
Subject: Fwd: [Linux-streams] Linux move to remove unused Kernel symbols 
effects LiS

Hello Arjan:

One of the LiS users sent me this.  I checked the list of undefined symbols 
in LiS against your list and this is what I find.

getname
kill_pg
get_empty_filp
do_settimeofday
pci_dac_set_dma_mask

Of those, do_settimeofday and pci_dac_set_dma_mask are only used because 
LiS is providing abstraction wrappers for those functions, which it would 
simply not do if the functions were not exported from the kernel.  The 
other three are actually used by the LiS code itself.

Can you retain these 5, or at least the first 3?

Thanks,
Dave


To: Dave Grothe <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Fwd: [Linux-streams] Linux move to remove unused Kernel 
symbols effects LiS

On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 02:34:08PM -0600, Dave Grothe wrote:
 > Hello Arjan:

 > Can you retain these 5, or at least the first 3?

unused is unused and takes up space in the main kernel for EVERYONE.
With the cleanup we only look at mainline users realistically, and to be
honest, most of the function on the big list are "wrong api"... nothing in
the kernel using them is a reasonably good sign of that after all.
(There are several exceptions to that of course, which is why going over
this list is a manual process that has been going on for the last few months
already)


To: Arjan van de Ven <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Fwd: [Linux-streams] Linux move to remove unused Kernel 
symbols effects LiS

Are you deleting the functions themselves or the exporting of 
them?  Exporting is cheap.
-- Dave


To: Dave Grothe <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Fwd: [Linux-streams] Linux move to remove unused Kernel 
symbols effects LiS


On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 02:56:54PM -0600, Dave Grothe wrote:
 > Are you deleting the functions themselves or the exporting of
 > them?  Exporting is cheap.

if they are entirely unused in the entire kernel both.
if they are not used, they become static (which gives gcc a much better
chance at optimizing and shrinking the code) and unexported
an export that doesn't result in the function going away saves on average
150 to 200 bytes per function. times 700......

unswappable dead wood. Can you justify that for ALL linux users? I cannot.


To: Arjan van de Ven <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Fwd: [Linux-streams] Linux move to remove unused Kernel 
symbols effects LiS

But LiS is a Linux user and it uses those three functions.  So, yes, I am 
willing to "impose" a "penalty" of 600 bytes on ALL Linux users so that 
LiS, and its users, can continue to function as before.

Sounds both cheap and friendly to me.

-- Dave

To: Dave Grothe <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Fwd: [Linux-streams] Linux move to remove unused Kernel 
symbols effects LiS


On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 03:10:39PM -0600, Dave Grothe wrote:
 > But LiS is a Linux user and it uses those three functions.  So, yes, I am
 > willing to "impose" a "penalty" of 600 bytes on ALL Linux users so that
 > LiS, and its users, can continue to function as before.
 >
 > Sounds both cheap and friendly to me.

then I think we disagree.