Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 18 Feb 2004 23:00:55 +0000 | From | Christoph Hellwig <> | Subject | Re: Non-GPL export of invalidate_mmap_range |
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On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 02:51:32PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote: > a) Does the export make technical sense? Do filesystems have > legitimate need for access to this symbol? > > (really, a) is sufficient grounds, but for real-world reasons:) > > b) Does the IBM filsystem meet the kernel's licensing requirements? > > > It appears that the answers are a): yes and b) probably.
Well, the answer to b) is most likely not. I see it very hard to argue to have something like gpfs not beeing a derived work. The glue code they had online certainly looked very much like a derived work, and if the new version got better they wouldn't have any reason to remove it from the website, right?
> Please, feel free to add additional criteria. We could also ask "do we > want to withhold this symbols to encourage IBM to GPL the filesystem" or > "do we simply refuse to export any symbol which is not used by any GPL > software" (if so, why?).
Yes. Andrew, please read the GPL, it's very clear about derived works. Then please tell me why you think gpfs is not a derived work.
> But at the end of the day, if we decide to not export this symbol, we owe > Paul a good, solid reason, yes?
Yes. We've traditionally not exported symbols unless we had an intree user, and especially not if it's for a module that's not GPL licensed.
We had this discussion with Linus a few time, maybe he can comment again to make it clear. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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