It actually goes back to 2004 ([PATCH] Concurrent O_SYNC write support) when sync_page_range() had been introduced; generic_file_write{,v}() correctly synced pos_after_write - written .. pos_after_write - 1 but generic_file_aio_write() synced pos_before_write .. pos_before_write + written - 1 instead. Which is not the same thing with O_APPEND, obviously. A couple of years later correct variant had