[parisc-linux] Re: Another problem with making things static

[James Bottomley]

On Sat, 2007-02-10 at 13:01 -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:29:24 -0600 James Bottomley <James.Bottomley at SteelEye.com> wrote:
> 
> > For any person who wants to make a static symbol exported, we force an
> > explanation out of them about what they're trying to do and why.  Might
> > I suggest we apply the same standard to anyone trying to make something
> > static?  i.e. they need to explain clearly why the symbol shouldn't be
> > part of any rational API.
> > 
> 
> The majority of these things are simply oversights: people forgot to
> type `static'.
> 
> C got the defualt wrong..

I agree ... lots of symbols in drivers or filesystems are obviously not
part of APIs ... however, that's not necessarily true of the kernel
proper.  I think forcing someone to think about what they're doing and
justify going from non static to static or vice versa is a good idea in
those cases.

James