From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 10:56:08 -0800 From: Andrew Morton Subject: Re: Non-GPL export of invalidate_mmap_range Message-Id: <20040219105608.30d2c51e.akpm@osdl.org> In-Reply-To: <20040219123237.B22406@infradead.org> References: <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> <20040218230055.A14889@infradead.org> <20040218153234.3956af3a.akpm@osdl.org> <20040219123237.B22406@infradead.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org Return-Path: To: Christoph Hellwig Cc: paulmck@us.ibm.com, arjanv@redhat.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, torvalds@osdl.org List-ID: Christoph Hellwig wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 03:32:34PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote: > > > 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. > > > > That's certainly a good rule of thumb and we (and I) have used it before. > > > > What is the reasoning behind it? > > The reason is that someone who wants to distribute a binary only module > has to show it's module is not a derived work, and someone who needs new > core in the kernel and new exports pretty much shows his work is deeply > integrated with the kernel. Needing access to invalidate_mmap_range() is surely not an indication of a derived work. It is an indication of a need for a reliable way to achieve inter-node cache consistency. Other distributed filesystems will need this and probably AIX already provides it. -- 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