Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:55:01 +0100 (CET) | From | Jiri Kosina <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] x86: remove byte locks |
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On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Jeremy Fitzhardinge wrote:
> > Why can't this just be somewhere in documentation? (possibly even with > > the byte locks code as a reference). > Because Ingo's compil-o-matic will never fail on a documentation error.
Hmm, I have always considered the "we don't accept any code that would have zero in-kernel users" rule as a quite reasonable one, at least in order to prevent from bloat and code getting confusing. But apparently it's not the intention here.
> > It is IMHO just totally confusing to have a spinlock implementation that is > > not used at all in the tree. It took me quite some time to go through this > > until I finally figured out that this code is actually never used. > > Currently, on first sight it might seem that byte locks are used whenever > > CONFIG_PARAVIRT is set, which is not true. > Well, a comment next to the code explaining the rationale probably > wouldn't go astray.
I still strongly feel that if the only purpose of the code in kernel is "to provide example", then it belongs to documentation.
> > And apparently even Linus got confused by this, which also tells us > > something by itself, see [1]. > > [1] http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=123144211719754&w=2 > It tells us that Linus couldn't give a rat's arse about virtualization, > which is just something we have to cope with ;)
I am afraid this has nothing to do with virtualization. It's simply confusing when looking at the code.
Thanks,
-- Jiri Kosina
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