regarding const variables/structures

[Greg KH]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 11:50:35AM +0530, inventsekar wrote:
> the question is that, how these many const variable issues are left/missed
> by the previous developers?!?!

Because we never realized the benifit of doing so when we created the
code to start with.  And then others copied previous code standards and
away we all went.

This developer took the time, wrote the correct tooling, handled
creating the changes and integrating them properly and getting them
merged into hundreds of different kernel subsystems.  A non-trivial task
to say the least.

And it has benifited all users of the kernel greatly due to the
increased security it provides.  A very nice job.

> per my little knowledge, this task looks
> like a simple one.. many other Kernel Developers should have thought and
> made these changes long before, but i am not able to understand why this
> wasnt done until recently?!?!?

Again, because we never really thought about it.  Or if we did, we only
made changes to the 1-2 drivers/subsystems that we controlled.  No one
spent the time to look at the whole kernel like Bhumika did, and put in
the hard work to make these changes.

Each individual patch might look "simple", but realize the effort
involved to get all of that work done is not.

Hope this helps,

greg k-h