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authorPeter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>2016-04-26 10:22:05 -0700
committerIngo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>2016-04-28 10:57:51 +0200
commite7720af5f9ac914577e2b810d5c004cdf395fd82 (patch)
treeac6250cf38869f5cf558c86389f822a25bb160bf /Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
parent1d4093d3b3a70b947822cca76d6e4132767ce089 (diff)
locking/Documentation: Add disclaimer
It appears people are reading this document as a requirements list for building hardware. This is not the intent of this document. Nor is it particularly suited for this purpose. The primary purpose of this document is our collective attempt to define a set of primitives that (hopefully) allow us to write correct code on the myriad of SMP platforms Linux supports. Its a definite work in progress as our understanding of these platforms, and memory ordering in general, progresses. Nor does being mentioned in this document mean we think its a particularly good idea; the data dependency barrier required by Alpha being a prime example. Yes we have it, no you're insane to require it when building new hardware. Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org> Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com> Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> Cc: corbet@lwn.net Cc: dave@stgolabs.net Cc: dhowells@redhat.com Cc: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org Cc: will.deacon@arm.com Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/1461691328-5429-1-git-send-email-paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>
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diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
index a9454b1c73bd..fb2dd35a823a 100644
--- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
+++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
@@ -4,8 +4,24 @@
By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
+ Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>
+ Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
-Contents:
+==========
+DISCLAIMER
+==========
+
+This document is not a specification; it is intentionally (for the sake of
+brevity) and unintentionally (due to being human) incomplete. This document is
+meant as a guide to using the various memory barriers provided by Linux, but
+in case of any doubt (and there are many) please ask.
+
+To repeat, this document is not a specification of what Linux expects from
+hardware.
+
+========
+CONTENTS
+========
(*) Abstract memory access model.