[MODERATED] Re: [PATCH 2/2] more sampling fun 2

On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 11:46:58AM +0100, speck for Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 07:26:41PM -0600, speck for Josh Poimboeuf wrote:
> > Why not just srbds= ?  That's what Intel calls it, and it would be
> > consistent with some of the other options like mds= and l1tf=.
> 
> For the same reason we did "spec_store_bypass_disable=" and not "ssbd=".
> Although former is a bit longish for my taste, it doesn't make you go
> look it up as "ssbd" does. And with "mds" and "l1tf" we dropped the ball
> again. :-\
> 
> Over time, they would all become a letters jumble which we all would
> have to go look up.
> 
> So I think at least *trying* to make them a bit more
> understandable/parseable for humans, would be beneficial in the long
> run.
> 
> So, for example, when I see "srb_sampling=off" at least I know, oh, ok,
> it disables sampling of that SRB thing. "srbds" tells me exactly nothing
> and the potential for flipping those letters' position is high.

Well, I see it the opposite way.  Those jumbles of letters do actually
mean something.  I still call them "MDS", "L1TF", "SSBD".  If you google
for "l1tf" or "mds vulnerability" they show up.  I'd expect to call this
one "SRBDS" a year from now.  I find "srb_sampling" to be confusing and
hard to remember because it renames something that already has an
industry standard name.

-- 
Josh