Pardon my language.
Bullshit. I would really like the Linux manpages to document THAT the
Linux implementation is POSIX compliant, or what extensions Linux
provides over the standard. Or what the standard mandates, and Linux
doesn't implement.
As Linux is mostly POSIX compliant, many system calls will be
documented exactly as they are in POSIX. Any differences should be
clearly marked. That way, while programming on Linux, I have the
choice to program away according to the manpages on my system, but
(if I want to) I'll also be warned about portability issues.
Sure, your description clearly conforms to "accepted practise": You
get to finger through the physical book if you want to know the
"standard", while you can only access the specifics for the single
system that you happen to be programming at the time.
But as for example the "select" manpage on Linux shows that it can be
done better: It documents the Linux implementation (timeout is
modified to reflect the remaining time), the common non-Linux
implementation (timeout is not modified), as well as the standard
(timeout is undefined on return).
We could decide to make Linux just another Unix, and do everything as
bad as the others do. However Linus is not shy of doing things better
than everybody else.
That's the way it should be.
Roger.
-- ** R.E.Wolff@BitWizard.nl ** http://www.BitWizard.nl/ ** +31-15-2137555 ** *-- BitWizard writes Linux device drivers for any device you may have! --* "I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was going to blame it on you."- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/