Re: [PATCH 1/2] Add note on MALLOC_MMAP_* environment variables

[DJ Delorie <dj at redhat dot com>]

Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com> writes:
> I think the notion that because one does not document something, it's
> not an official part of the ABI is at best highly dubious.

I wasn't here for the origin of those variables, I'm just thinking that
we use a leading underscore elsewhere to mean "not official" so the
trailing underscore here might have similar intent.

FTR I have no problem with documenting unsupported behavior, I just want
to make sure we understand how this patch affects the officialness of
this ABI.

> The only way that documentation might be able to help in such
> situations is where pieces are clearly and loudly documented right
> from the beginning, in the official documentation, as "not supported,
> may disappear at any moment in the future, use at your own risk", but
> even then people are likely to ignore the documentation or be unaware
> of it.

That would be fine too.  My concern is: if we intended for those
variables to be unofficial before, do we want to (1) make them official
now, or (2) be careful not to *accidentally* make them official?

And if we decide they're official (and/or always have been), should we
add in variants without underscores to be the official ones?

So I guess the next step is to have someone in authority (or consensus?)
decide if those variables are "official" or not, and if they should
become so if not.

Based on that we may want to tweak the documentation patch, or the code.