From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752598AbXCNRb2 (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:31:28 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752610AbXCNRb2 (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:31:28 -0400 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.24]:47220 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752598AbXCNRb1 (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:31:27 -0400 Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:30:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Al Viro cc: Geert Uytterhoeven , linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH 13/13] fix ps3fb glue allowing a modular build In-Reply-To: <20070314170720.GL4095@ftp.linux.org.uk> Message-ID: References: <20070314160258.GK4095@ftp.linux.org.uk> <20070314170720.GL4095@ftp.linux.org.uk> 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 Wed, 14 Mar 2007, Al Viro wrote: > > Nope. How can kconfig distinguish that from a boolean option in modular > driver? bool *can* depend on tristate and be selected when tristate is > set to m. Btw, this is one of those things that easily causes problems. In many ways it would be nice if we had two different kinds of "bool": one where "m" in the dependency chain means "y" is ok, and one where "m" means "n". We used to have "dep_bool" and "dep_mbool" for this, a long time ago. It got dropped in the Kconfig language rewrite, and I think it was a mistake. So I think it would be nice to re-introduce it. As it is, we have a number of Kconfig language constructs that are just unnecessarily hard to understand, because we end up having to add a "= y" or similar. The rule *used* to be: "dep_mbool" was a boolean that was valid even for modules, while "dep_bool" was a boolean that was valid only for straigth "y", and a module would turn it off. Maybe not "bool" vs "mbool", but it might be nice to have bool FB_PS3 depends strictly on FB ie a "depends strictly" refuses to upgrade a bool dependency from "m" to "y", while a regular depends allows it. Or something.. The "depends strictly on X" thing would really be just a mental shorthand for "depends on (X)=y" (it's actually longer to type, but I think it's a bit more intuitive, thus "mental shortcut"). Linus