The recent proposal
from David Hildenbrand to remove support for the /dev/kmem special
file has not sparked a lot of discussion. Perhaps that is because today’s
youngsters, lacking an understanding of history, may be wondering
what that file is in the first place and, thus, be unclear on why it may
matter. Chances are that /dev/kmem will not be missed, but in
passing it takes away a venerable part of the Unix kernel interface.

Source: LWN.net – [$] Killing off /dev/kmem