From: Eric W. Biederman There is no need for open files in /proc/sys/XXX to hold a reference count on the module that provides the file to prevent module unload races. While there is code active in the module p->used in the sysctl_table_header is incremented, preventing the sysctl from being unregisted. Once the sysctl is unregistered it cannot be found. Open files are also not a problem as they revalidate the sysctl information and bump p->used before accessing module code. So setting de->owner is unnecessary, makes for a bad example and gets in my way of removing ctl_table->de. Signed-off-by: Eric W. Biederman Acked-by: Jens Axboe Acked-by: James Bottomley Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton --- drivers/cdrom/cdrom.c | 2 -- 1 file changed, 2 deletions(-) diff -puN drivers/cdrom/cdrom.c~sysctl-cdrom-dont-set-de-owner drivers/cdrom/cdrom.c --- a/drivers/cdrom/cdrom.c~sysctl-cdrom-dont-set-de-owner +++ a/drivers/cdrom/cdrom.c @@ -3559,8 +3559,6 @@ static void cdrom_sysctl_register(void) return; cdrom_sysctl_header = register_sysctl_table(cdrom_root_table, 0); - if (cdrom_root_table->ctl_name && cdrom_root_table->child->de) - cdrom_root_table->child->de->owner = THIS_MODULE; /* set the defaults */ cdrom_sysctl_settings.autoclose = autoclose; _