Removing NULL checks

1. The kernel is (mostly) written in C and uses a general purpose C compiler (even more than one, if you count Intel). So the kernel should follow the C rules (and the C standard), even if on the surface it seems that these rules don't always make sense in the kernel context. For example, under DOS dereferencing a NULL pointer would not generate any kind of error. That doesn't mean that it is a good practice to remove NULL pointer checks for all reads. It is still undefined behavior according to the C standard and any C compiler for DOS is free to apply the same (correct!) optimization.

I think what people don't realize is that such optimizations are not only valid, but necessary. While there are the few exceptional cases like this one where they seem to get in the way, they are useful in the majority of cases.

2. Whether the _tun_ pointer should ever be expected to be NULL in this point. I have no idea, but if it is supposed to have been checked earlier, it is reasonable not to check again and this is a simple logical bug.

3. Whether the kernel should trap NULL pointer accesses in hardware for kernel code. Again I don't know, but personally I prefer that it did, unless there is good reason not to. Is there one?

Still relying on this can be risky, for example:
int * a = NULL;
x = a[10000];

The first page may be unmapped, but we are not accessing it.