From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S267486AbUBSTQm (ORCPT ); Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:16:42 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267489AbUBSTQm (ORCPT ); Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:16:42 -0500 Received: from parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk ([195.92.249.252]:21908 "EHLO www.linux.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S267486AbUBSTQh (ORCPT ); Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:16:37 -0500 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 19:16:33 +0000 From: viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk To: Lars Marowsky-Bree Cc: "Paul E. McKenney" , Christoph Hellwig , Andrew Morton , torvalds@osd.org, arjanv@redhat.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org Subject: Re: Non-GPL export of invalidate_mmap_range Message-ID: <20040219191633.GD31035@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk> References: <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> <20040218162858.2a230401.akpm@osdl.org> <20040219123110.A22406@infradead.org> <20040219091129.GD1269@us.ibm.com> <20040219183210.GX14000@marowsky-bree.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040219183210.GX14000@marowsky-bree.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 07:32:10PM +0100, Lars Marowsky-Bree wrote: > Only if we can settle this, we can answer this export question. If we > want to allow them, the export is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask > for. If not, we probably need to add a few more _GPL barriers. > > A rule of thumb might be whether any code in the tree uses a given > export, and if not, prune it. Anything which even we don't use or export > across the user-land boundary certainly qualifies as a kernel interna. > > Currently, no kernel module seems to use this export. So I'd think such > a point could certainly be made. I'm not sure. I'm all for trimming the export list, but the real questions are * does that export make sense? * does it impose extra restrictions on what we can do with core code? (without breaking it, that is) * is it needed in the first place? If it's redundant - to hell it goes. Note that majority of the exported symbols fail at least one of the above and _that_ is why they should be killed. Whether their users are GPL or not doesn't matter - if they don't make sense, they must die, no matter what b0rken code might be using them. IMNSHO the questions above should be answered first and AFAICS they hadn't been even discussed in that case.