Linux Operating System Source Code: IBM Patches

Patch to remove kernel_flag (BKL) instances created.

A patch has been created which removes the BKL from the release functions of over 50 drivers' release functions. The release functions are already serialized in the VFS code by an atomic_t which guarantees that each function will be called only once, after all file descriptors have been closed. In addition, in these drivers, the BKL was _only_ held in the release function and nowhere else in the driver where it might be needed.

To provide good examples, some patches address minor but necessary locking issues in the open/release functions of the affected driver.

Special care has been taken not to introduce more locking issues into the drivers. They're available as one big patch against 2.4.16.

All the patches are available in http://sourceforge.net/projects/lse and some of the rationale and issues can be found in http://lse.sourceforge.net/lockhier/bkl_patches.html.