From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755316AbbE1XMF (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 May 2015 19:12:05 -0400 Received: from cantor2.suse.de ([195.135.220.15]:50836 "EHLO mx2.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755265AbbE1XKr (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 May 2015 19:10:47 -0400 Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 01:10:44 +0200 From: "Luis R. Rodriguez" To: Al Viro Cc: "Luis R. Rodriguez" , corbet@lwn.net, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, mingo@elte.hu, gnomes@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk, gregkh@linuxfoundation.org, jkosina@suse.cz, bhelgaas@google.com, linux-pci@vger.kernel.org, xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org, bp@suse.de Subject: Re: [PATCH] Documentation: extend use case for EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() Message-ID: <20150528231044.GY23057@wotan.suse.de> References: <1432839361-10308-1-git-send-email-mcgrof@do-not-panic.com> <20150528200749.GD7232@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> <20150528211736.GV23057@wotan.suse.de> <20150528215618.GE7232@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20150528215618.GE7232@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 10:56:19PM +0100, Al Viro wrote: > On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:17:36PM +0200, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote: > > > ... while some of us consider that as pointless posturing and will refuse > > > to merge such exports regardless. > > > > Can you elaborate why, for those maintainers not aware of such positions? > > *shrug* > > Either one states that all modules are derivative works of the kernel, > period (in which case attaching _GPL to specific exports is completely > pointless), or it's a claim that this specific export is something > special on its own, which is a fairly strong claim, completely unfounded > more often than not. In the worst cases it's the former being misrepresented > as the latter. That only serves to weaken our position in case of copyright > violations, IMO. When obviously BS claims like "encoding and decoding > of UIDs between the numeric values as seen by userland and stored on > filesystem and opaque pointers as used by the userns stuff is so special > that its use alone is sufficient to change whether the code is derivative > of the kernel or not" are thrown around, we end up with weaker protection, > not stronger one. If something like _that_ makes the difference between > derived and non-derived, the former can't be worth much... Great, thanks. This seems to be in alignment with those who have all along said they've used EXPORT_SYMBOL() to mean what EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() users now use it for. Nevertheless -- maintainers should know that some stubborn developers use EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() for its technical merit should violators abuse those symbols. Luis