From: "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@gmail.com>
To: "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Cc: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>, Al Viro <viro@ftp.linux.org.uk>,
Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>,
Aaditya.Rai@atheros.com, Prem.Kumar@atheros.com,
Stephen.Chen@atheros.com, Rahul.Sridhar@atheros.com,
Allen.Tsai@atheros.com
Subject: EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL recursive for shim and/or wrappers
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 12:41:58 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <43e72e890906011241u24b82cc3gc06bf7be4f43075e@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
The intention behind EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL seems clear to me -- prevent
proprietary drivers from using GPL-only symbols. Something that to me
is clear but perhaps not to others is the the extent to which this
reaches for proprietary modules. As I interpret it proprietary modules
could _not_ make use of wrappers or shims which export new symbols
with EXPORT_SYMBOL but that those modules were themselves using
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL. That is create non-gpl-compatible wrapper symbols
for GPL-compatible-only symbols.
There is a cases though where the intent behind "shim" or "wrappers"
may actually not be to circumvent the GPL-compatible requirement of
code built using EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL and although I believe it would
still constitute a violation I'd like feedback or more clarity on this
from others. The case would be where the "shim" or "wrapper" provides
realistic APIs for a framework of abstraction for different buses. In
that case the bus-agnostic API layer does make use of
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL for USB for example but may not make use of it for
other buses. In any case the intent here would then not to circumvent
the GPL-compatible requirement but to simply implement a bus-agnostic
API.
Does EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL imply that modules which make use of these
symbols must also use EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL for their own symbols? If so
then it would be clear of the recursive nature of intent.
To me the recursive nature is clear, but just wanted to ask. I also
don't see this documented in Documentation/ or in the header files,
but perhaps it should be there if such a patch is welcomed.
Luis
next reply other threads:[~2009-06-01 19:42 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2009-06-01 19:41 Luis R. Rodriguez [this message]
2009-06-01 20:37 ` Pavel Roskin
2009-06-01 21:32 ` Alan Cox
2009-06-01 21:39 ` Greg KH
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