However, it is entirely possible and indeed workable, I think, to simply send the raw syslog message using sockets and avoid a syslog API altogether, leaving the remote log server to make sense of it (which has already been mentioned by someone else, and is I think the default behaviour of syslog - but I'm wiling to be corrected). But smarter heads than mine will decide.
I think a good case can be made for both. The syslog interface gives you a quick way to get remote logging up and running because it doesn't require any special programming. On the other hand, having a socket interface gives you the ability to write whatever crazy program you want to process the log information. On the other hand, I don't want to make the boot parameters too complicated. There's already too many of them and some are pretty goofy. - Chris
