[MBCook]

Yeah I was kind of wondering what his take on something like this would be.

On the one hand you're changing an API, which is a promise to userspace. On the other hand, no one was using it right leading to most networking apps being vulnerable to a DOS.

Given the proven risk and how little the feature is used, changing the API to match what people THINK it does seems sane.

I have a vague memory or Linus making a similar 'change it' decision once.

[UnoriginalGuy]

Also according to this article it was either undocumented or extremely poorly documented depending on which doc's you look at. So maybe they're removing a feature a lot of developers either didn't know about or didn't know they COULD utilise.

[aidenn0]

If no examples could be found of someone relying on the behavior, then a change would be okay. Otherwise the solution would be to implement a modified API.

Alternatively glibc could change it, as glibc almost seems to want to break existing programs.