From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261704AbUB0GKo (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Feb 2004 01:10:44 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261692AbUB0GKn (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Feb 2004 01:10:43 -0500 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:12434 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261704AbUB0GKm (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Feb 2004 01:10:42 -0500 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 22:16:19 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds To: Ulrich Drepper cc: Jakub Jelinek , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add getdents32t syscall In-Reply-To: <403E9E4D.6090301@redhat.com> Message-ID: References: <20040226193819.GA3501@sunsite.ms.mff.cuni.cz> <20040226223212.GA31589@devserv.devel.redhat.com> <403E9E4D.6090301@redhat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, Ulrich Drepper wrote: > > > In other words, why doesn't glibc ever just make a new major number and > > make its "struct dirent" be the 64-bit version? > > You can't be serious. Can you even imagine the pain this would cause? Do you know how much pain it causes when you make changes and you do _not_ change the major number? At some point you need to clean up. This issue has been with us for years and years. I don't understand why you'd want to add a totally new system call now. Instead, I'd suggest you just put this on the long list of things to fix for when a new major number is to be used. And yes, you should use a new major number at some point. It is _senseless_ to never update the majors. Just make a clean break, go through every little nagging ugly thing (and there are a _lot_ of them that have accumulated over the years), and make ready for "libc-3.0". No, I'm not suggesting you do it for this one thing, obviously. But there's bound to be _thousands_ of these stupid things where glibc has compatibility crap that makes no sense. Linus