Why do kernel makefiles put things like -O2 and warning flags in COPTS?
Worse, the default contents appear to vary by arch.

I tried adding -pipe by setting COPTS; it works great for userland but
isn't a good idea for kernels.

I found that I can set DEBUG for kernels, but that's cheesy and I'd rather
have my top-level stuff not need to know which of those it has to use.

Is there some overriding reason why kernel makefiles don't keep COPTS free
for users to set without impacting any other default options?

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ best.com