• Jonathan Neuschäfer's avatar
    kernel/sys.c: Clarify that UNAME26 does not generate unique versions anymore · b7285b42
    Jonathan Neuschäfer authored
    UNAME26 is a mechanism to report Linux's version as 2.6.x, for
    compatibility with old/broken software.  Due to the way it is
    implemented, it would have to be updated after 5.0, to keep the
    resulting versions unique.  Linus Torvalds argued:
    
     "Do we actually need this?
    
      I'd rather let it bitrot, and just let it return random versions. It
      will just start again at 2.4.60, won't it?
    
      Anybody who uses UNAME26 for a 5.x kernel might as well think it's
      still 4.x. The user space is so old that it can't possibly care about
      differences between 4.x and 5.x, can it?
    
      The only thing that matters is that it shows "2.4.<largeenough>",
      which it will do regardless"
    Signed-off-by: default avatarJonathan Neuschäfer <j.neuschaefer@gmx.net>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
    b7285b42
sys.c 62 KB