Re: PATCH 2.4.0.9.2: export ethtool interface

["David S. Miller" <davem@xxxxxxxxxx>]

   Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:30:42 +0200
   From: Andi Kleen <ak@xxxxxx>

   Also I would propose to run dev->do_ioctl and probably other device
   methods inside the BKL, they are not performance critical anyways
   and it is much safer.

Why, that's really dumb.

All of net/* and drivers/net/* runs %100 asynchronous and threaded on
SMP systems.  Your suggested change would create a new exception :-)

The only exception being "stupid" protocols which are:

1) wrapped by a global spinlock in softint processing
2) wrapped with lock_kernel()/unlock_kernel() around socket method
   entry points

Later,
David S. Miller
davem@xxxxxxxxxx