Re: [PATCH] ethtool.h should use userspace-accessible types

[Jonathan Lundell]

At 9:25 PM -0600 3/13/04, Matt Mackall wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 12, 2004 at 01:48:54PM -0800, Jonathan Lundell wrote:
> >  At 10:06 AM -0700 3/12/04, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> >  >My intent was to say:  Why change the types when there is no #ifdef
> >  >__KERNEL__ in the header.  With no #ifdef __KERNEL__ it exports
> >  >definitions that are private to the kernel making it not safe for
> >  >userspace to use.  With kernel private definitions in there it will
> >  >generate name space pollution if included by user space.
> >
> >  Presumably because it *is* included by userspace, because it defines
> >  the interface between the kernel and userspace; of course userspace
> >  will (does) include it.
>
> Well that's a bug. You don't include kernel headers in userspace.
> Doing so has been deprecated for 8 years and 3 major releases.

Then it's a bug for the ethtool maintainer. ethtool.c #includes 
ethtool-copy.h, a renamed copy of the kernel header file.

I'm familiar with the deprecation and continue to be bewildered by 
it. To take this particular example, ethtool.h defines an interface 
between a kernel facility and a userspace client. What's the 
non-deprecated method of sharing the interface definition?
--
/Jonathan Lundell.
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