conf/79715: MNT_NODEV should be removed from sys/mount.h

[Erez Zadok]

The following reply was made to PR conf/79715; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Erez Zadok <ezk at cs.sunysb.edu>
To: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
Cc: Erez Zadok <ezk at cs.sunysb.edu>, freebsd-gnats-submit at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: conf/79715: MNT_NODEV should be removed from sys/mount.h 
Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2005 12:18:08 -0400

 In message <28785.1113062706 at critter.freebsd.dk>, "Poul-Henning Kamp" writes:
 > In message <200504091552.j39FqlT0061068 at www.freebsd.org>, Erez Zadok writes:
 > 
 > 
 > >I maintain am-utils (www.am-utils.org).  Users reported some
 > >problems to me, which I tracked down to a depracated definition of
 > >MNT_NODEV in sys/mount.h.  It was left there, but reset to 0:
 > >
 > >#define MNT_NODEV       0               /* Deprecated option */
 > >
 > 
 > I'm perfectly OK with removing it, but didn't out of fear of what
 > I might break.  I guess this was a loose-loose scenario...
 
 If the actual NODEV functionallity had been removed from the kernel itself,
 then older binaries, precompiled with whatever NODEV was before, will get
 confused b/c users will expect "nodev" to work, but it will silently not
 work.
 
 > Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
 > phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
 > FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
 > Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
 
 Thanks,
 Erez.