Re: Syscall numbers for BProc

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <[e-mail]>
By author:    [e-mail]
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> 
> The reason it is the way it is because when I'm trying to avoid
> stomping on other syscalls, having a small foot print is a good thing.
> 
> BProc will always be a fringe kind of thing.  Adding more than a
> syscall or two seems like quite a bit of polution in the main kernel
> to me.  Similarly, I don't think the main kernel should include the
> BProc patch.  It changes fairly often, isn't 100% unintrusive and
> would be used by less than .1% of people out there.
> 
> Breaking out every call into a separate syscall number would also make
> it more difficult to add new features in the future.
> 

Well, first of all, multiplexes break a lot of tools.  But worse, they
lead to really badly designed APIs partially because of lack of
review.  You have just demonstrated this phenomenon...

	-hpa
-- 
<[e-mail]> at work, <[e-mail]> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
Architectures needed: ia64 m68k mips64 ppc ppc64 s390 s390x sh v850 x86-64