Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Thu, 4 Apr 2002 12:16:37 -0500 (EST) | | From | Ingo Molnar <> | | Subject | Re: [PATCH 2.5.5] do export vmalloc_to_page to modules... |
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On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> adding export symbol here and there it's the same thing you did in the > redhat kernel and in your tux patches here:
it was done by first *asking* all maintainers/authors involved, including the network folks and Linus. Plus at the time it was done no _GPL way to signal internal components existed, i'd otherwise have used it to document that this is an internal export only, for the fully GPL-ed TUX subsystem. But i'd have no problem with making TUX a fully statically linked thing either. [it's just so convenient to demand-link TUX as a part of the kernel.]
> There is no difference at all with what you did above and with my > removal of the _GPL tag from the vmalloc_to_page [...]
(lets stop this vmalloc_to_page() thing, as i said i agree with providing it as a published export. It's a small-enough function to be a non-issue.)
> Now if my understanding is wrong, I'd like to know of course, I'm not > expert here, but the only logical thing I'm sure about is that if it's > illegal for me to export my GPL wrapper then I've just the right to make > all non GPL drivers illegal, that is the only logical sure thing that > can be deducted. And yes, I'd be really happy if I'd that right.
while i'm not a lawyer either, i think the question here is intent, like in most matters of law/contract. If your intent is to make something that is a derivative look like something that is not a derivative, you are on the bad side. Eg. the GPL also uses intent in a form - eg. 'source code' is not some arbitrary language or format, 'source code' is the preferred form intended for development. In this sense it's not a GPL-conform publication of source code to provide hex-encoded objects within C files, even though C code matches the technical definition of 'source code'.
the other problem is that i think we really want to cooperate with people who'd like to interface with the kernel in kernel-space, without making their code a derivative of the kernel, along a well-defined API, even if those people do not want to GPL their code for whatever reasons. But like Alex mentioned it, Linux never had a 'well defined module API'. There was no guarantee, no nothing, it's not an API in the GPL sense i think.
Ingo
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