Why is the kernel deciding if the memory is still needed or not? The kernel can only know how it is used, not why it is used. It can guess the purpose with heur

Why is the kernel deciding if the memory is still needed or not? The kernel can only know how it is used, not why it is used. It can guess the purpose with heuristics, but only the applications know exactly why the memory is used. The correct solution is to disable overcommit, which will force programmers to make use of that superior knowledge to free memory when they no longer need it. We're in this crazy situation because somebody decided to sacrifice reliability to increase efficiency. Efficiency is easier to measure so they got away with it. Fixing the live-lock problem makes things slightly better, but it's not solving the underlying problem. Andries Brouwer's classic comment remains as relevant as ever: https://lwn.net/Articles/104185/ https://lwn.net/Articles/104185/