Comment 4 for bug 380501

<quote>The EPS Specification requires that the "bounding box is the smallest rectangle that encloses all the marks painted".</quote>

This contradicts the eps export option "whole canvas".
Taking your comment serious, there would be no choice of "whole canvas", i.e. the choice between the eps export option "drawing" and "canvas" could be completely removed from inkscape.
I don't see any serious reason for keeping this option choice. The effect of adding a white margin to the drawing could better be achieved by adding a white rectangle in the background of the drawing, which would be automatically respected by the bounding box.