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SubjectRe: [RFC] EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL_FUTURE()
Date
On Feb 11, 2006, at 23:15, Greg KH wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 09:34:40PM -0500, Mark Lord wrote:
>> Greg KH wrote:
>>> So, here's a patch that implements EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL_FUTURE().
>>> It basically says that some time in the future, this symbol is
>>> going to change and not be allowed to be called from non-GPL
>>> licensed kernel modules.
>>
>> The wording and intent here are incorrect.
>>
>> All kernel modules are already *GPL licensed*, whether the authors
>> think so or not.
>>
>> So this patch (if it goes through), should be reworded so as not
>> to muddy those waters (as the above excerpt does).
>
> Care to provide some text that you feel will be better?

IANAL, but this or some lawyer-revised derivative might be good for
an official changelog comment (if it ever gets committed):

It was noticed that the source-code restrictions on certain exported
symbols did not match the effective legal restrictions. Therefore,
in the interests of preserving some backwards compatibility with
buggy kernel modules that do not specify a license string or specify
an incorrect license string, this patch creates a new symbol export
macro "EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL_FUTURE()". This macro causes uses of the
symbol from modules not marked "GPL" to be warned about, so that
module developers may correctly specify a compatible license in their
sources. The set of all symbols flagged this way is no way
exclusive; it's possible that we should flag _all_ presently exported
symbols this way. On the other hand, in the interests of avoiding
thousands of warnings on boot for buggy modules, only some of the
symbols are actually changed to use this new flag. For each instance
of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL_FUTURE, ample time (a couple kernel versions or
so) will be provided for for buggy modules to be fixed after which it
will be changed to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett

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