Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] [git patches] two warning fixes

[Linus T. <tor...@li...>]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
> Please pull from 'warnings' branch of
> master.kernel.org:/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jgarzik/misc-2.6.git warnings
> 
> to receive the following updates:

Quite frankly, I think a *lot* better fix for warnings would be to remove 
those damn broken "must_check" things on functions that don't at all need 
checking!

I'm pretty fed up with random "must_check" and "deprecated". They have 
never *ever* helped anybody, afaik. There are some very few functions that 
really do need to have their error returns checked (because not checking 
it is a security issue), but people seem to think "must_check" is a good 
approximation of "I think most of the time it makes sense to check".

So let's make a new rule:

  We absolutely NEVER add things like "must_check" unless not checking 
  causes a real and obvious SECURITY ISSUE.

  And we absolutely *never* add crap like "deprecated", where the only 
  point of the warning is to effectively hide *real* problems.

So realistically, the only thing that needs must_check is pretty much 
things like "get_user()" and quite frankly, I'm not sure even about that 
one.

Ok?

			Linus