From:   "Petr Vandrovec" <VANDROVE@vc.cvut.cz>
Organization:  CC CTU Prague
To:     andrewm@uow.edu.au
Date:          Mon, 19 Jun 2000 17:20:04 MET-1
MIME-Version:  1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Subject:       Re: modular net drivers
CC:     netdev@oss.sgi.com
Message-ID: <600FE22630F@vcnet.vc.cvut.cz>
Sender: owner-netdev@oss.sgi.com
Precedence: bulk

On 19 Jun 00 at 23:54, Andrew Morton wrote:
> @@ -664,8 +665,13 @@
>      *  Call device private open method
>      */
>      
> -   if (dev->open) 
> +   if (dev->open) {
> +       if (dev->owner)
> +           __MOD_INC_USE_COUNT(dev->owner);
>         ret = dev->open(dev);
> +       if (ret != 0 && dev->owner)
> +           __MOD_DEC_USE_COUNT(dev->owner);
> +   }

You should change it to
    if (dev->owner)
        __MOD_INC_USE_COUNT(dev->owner);
    if (dev->open)
        ret = dev->open(dev);
    if (ret != 0 && dev->owner)
        __MOD_DEC_USE_COUNT(dev->owner);
    ...
as 'ret' is preinitialized to 0, so NULL ->open is allowed - your
code will decrement usage count below zero in release code for
devices with NULL open... (there are no such devices just now as 
currently you must do at least MOD_INC_USE_COUNT in open, but in 
future... Or change it to if (!dev->open) BUG(); ...)
                                            Best regards,
                                                    Petr Vandrovec
                                                    vandrove@vc.cvut.cz

P.S.: It would be really nice if each 2.4.0-acXX could differ in
LINUX_VERSION_CODE... It is really hard to maintain module (vmmon/vmnet)
for 22 different kernels which all presents as 2.4.0 :-( And we have
even more of 2.3.99 flawors...