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Re: ABI compatibility


On Thursday 26 April 2012 00:30:52 David Miller wrote:
> From: Mike Frysinger
> > err, no ... API compat has never been a goal in the Linux kernel.  quite
> > the opposite actually (which Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt is
> > unambiguous in stating).  further, ABI compatibility has basically been
> > defined as "if it
> 
> That's a document about interfaces the kernel uses inside of the
> kernel, not about interfaces the kernel exports to userspace which is
> the topic of discussion here.
> 
> Please don't spread this kind of misinformation, userland API
> stability is of utmost importantance priority for kernel developers
> and has been from day one.

you've confused ABI and API here.  userland API absolutely has *not* been of 
the utmost priority from day one.  anyone even remotely familiar with 
including kernel headers in userland code knows this, and distributors know it 
better than anyone else.  `make headers_install` wasn't merged until 2.6.18.

wrt to ABI, you're also missing the nuances.  the kernel's ABI does break, but 
if no userland apps are known to be affected, it is allowed to be merged.
-mike

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