From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 23:00:55 +0000 From: Christoph Hellwig Subject: Re: Non-GPL export of invalidate_mmap_range Message-ID: <20040218230055.A14889@infradead.org> References: <20040216190927.GA2969@us.ibm.com> <20040217073522.A25921@infradead.org> <20040217124001.GA1267@us.ibm.com> <20040217161929.7e6b2a61.akpm@osdl.org> <1077108694.4479.4.camel@laptop.fenrus.com> <20040218140021.GB1269@us.ibm.com> <20040218211035.A13866@infradead.org> <20040218150607.GE1269@us.ibm.com> <20040218222138.A14585@infradead.org> <20040218145132.460214b5.akpm@osdl.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040218145132.460214b5.akpm@osdl.org>; from akpm@osdl.org on Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 02:51:32PM -0800 Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org Return-Path: To: Andrew Morton , tovalds@osdl.org Cc: Christoph Hellwig , paulmck@us.ibm.com, arjanv@redhat.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org List-ID: 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, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: aart@kvack.org