Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:
Of the two flags, I would say CLOEXEC is the more important one to
respect because it may actually impact correctness (e.g., leaking
descriptors to sub-processes). Whereas O_NOATIME is purely a performance
optimization.
I tend to agree.
I actually wonder if it is worth carrying around the O_NOATIME hack at
all.
Yes, I share the thought. We no longer have too many loose objects
to matter.
I do not mind flipping the order, but I'd prefer to cook the result
even longer. I am tempted to suggest we take two step route:
- ship 2.11 with the "atime has been there and we won't regress it"
shape, while cooking the "cloexec is semantically more
important" version in 'next' during the feature freeze
- immediately after 2.11 merge it to 'master' for 2.12 to make sure
there is no fallout.