Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:05:37 +0200 | From | David Weinehall <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] ioctl SIOCGIFNETMASK: ip alias bug 2.4.9 and 2.2.19 |
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On Thu, Sep 06, 2001 at 10:13:59PM +0200, Matthias Andree wrote: > On Thu, 06 Sep 2001, Alan Cox wrote: > > > I think you have the metaphor wrong. The older API is a bit like the > > cavalry charging into battle at the start of world war one. It may have been > > how everyone did it but they guys with the "newfangled, really not how it > > should be done, definitely not cricket" machine guns got the last laugh > > Alan, portability is an issue or Linux will lose. Admittedly, legacy > interfaces do not support all of those new features, but a rather > trivial patch of mine brings SIOCGIFNETMASK compatibility with both the > old and the new stuff, please name precisely the objections against > portability and compatibility with FreeBSD 4.x aliasing.
Are you saying that Linux should implement compability with _new_ features in FreeBSD 4.x, while at the same time frowning at the fact that Linux introduces a new API?! The mind boggles at the thought.
Please accept, that sometimes, just sometimes, there is a superior way to do something, and implementing support for that might not be such a bad idea after all. Whining about this causing "bloat and maintainance nightmares" (no, not a direct quote, sorry for that) doesn't cut it, because there are probably more Linux-machines running the software than any BSD-machines, thus the netlink-code will get _more_ testing than the legacy API.
/David Weinehall _ _ // David Weinehall <tao@acc.umu.se> /> Northern lights wander \\ // Project MCA Linux hacker // Dance across the winter sky // \> http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/ </ Full colour fire </ - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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