Subject: + documentation-abi-document-the-non-abi-status-of-kconfig-and-symbols.patch added to -mm tree To: josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,boyu.mt@xxxxxxxxxx,gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,hpa@xxxxxxxxx,richard.weinberger@xxxxxxxxx,rob@xxxxxxxxxxx From: akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 14:36:06 -0700 The patch titled Subject: Documentation/ABI: document the non-ABI status of Kconfig and symbols has been added to the -mm tree. Its filename is documentation-abi-document-the-non-abi-status-of-kconfig-and-symbols.patch This patch should soon appear at http://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmots/broken-out/documentation-abi-document-the-non-abi-status-of-kconfig-and-symbols.patch and later at http://ozlabs.org/~akpm/mmotm/broken-out/documentation-abi-document-the-non-abi-status-of-kconfig-and-symbols.patch Before you just go and hit "reply", please: a) Consider who else should be cc'ed b) Prefer to cc a suitable mailing list as well c) Ideally: find the original patch on the mailing list and do a reply-to-all to that, adding suitable additional cc's *** Remember to use Documentation/SubmitChecklist when testing your code *** The -mm tree is included into linux-next and is updated there every 3-4 working days ------------------------------------------------------ From: Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Documentation/ABI: document the non-ABI status of Kconfig and symbols Discussion at Kernel Summit made it clear that the presence or absence of specific Kconfig symbols are not considered ABI, and that no userspace (or bootloader, etc) should rely on them. In addition, kernel-internal symbols are well established as non-ABI, per Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt. Document both of these in Documentation/ABI/README, in a new section for notable bits of non-ABI. Signed-off-by: Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Rob Landley <rob@xxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Tao Ma <boyu.mt@xxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Acked-by: H. Peter Anvin <hpa@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: Richard Weinberger <richard.weinberger@xxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- Documentation/ABI/README | 13 +++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+) diff -puN Documentation/ABI/README~documentation-abi-document-the-non-abi-status-of-kconfig-and-symbols Documentation/ABI/README --- a/Documentation/ABI/README~documentation-abi-document-the-non-abi-status-of-kconfig-and-symbols +++ a/Documentation/ABI/README @@ -72,3 +72,16 @@ kernel tree without going through the ob It's up to the developer to place their interfaces in the category they wish for it to start out in. + + +Notable bits of non-ABI, which should not under any circumstances be considered +stable: + +- Kconfig. Userspace should not rely on the presence or absence of any + particular Kconfig symbol, in /proc/config.gz, in the copy of .config + commonly installed to /boot, or in any invocation of the kernel build + process. + +- Kernel-internal symbols. Do not rely on the presence, absence, location, or + type of any kernel symbol, either in System.map files or the kernel binary + itself. See Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt. _ Patches currently in -mm which might be from josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx are checkpatch-report-missing-spaces-around-trigraphs-with-strict.patch checkpatchpl-check-for-the-fsf-mailing-address.patch documentation-abi-document-the-non-abi-status-of-kconfig-and-symbols.patch scripts-bloat-o-meter-ignore-changes-in-the-size-of-linux_banner.patch scripts-bloat-o-meter-use-startswith-rather-than-fragile-slicing.patch linux-next.patch -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe mm-commits" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html