From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754310AbcEPSXR (ORCPT ); Mon, 16 May 2016 14:23:17 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:53596 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753856AbcEPSXO (ORCPT ); Mon, 16 May 2016 14:23:14 -0400 Subject: Re: CQ and RDMA READ/WRITE APIs To: Linus Torvalds References: <743399f9-10b7-6e62-2bf4-6a8656df8a55@redhat.com> <20160516114926.GA681@lst.de> Cc: Christoph Hellwig , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Sagi Grimberg , Bart Van Assche From: Doug Ledford Openpgp: id=AE6B1BDA122B23B4265B1274B826A3330E572FDD; url=pgp.mit.edu X-Enigmail-Draft-Status: N1110 Organization: Red Hat, Inc. Message-ID: <6633ce02-7983-ad09-f95d-03cea6f54e31@redhat.com> Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 14:23:12 -0400 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="GkobS0RLHmqmxeWkdNo01ptgBXeb57EbE" X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.5.16 (mx1.redhat.com [10.5.110.29]); Mon, 16 May 2016 18:23:14 +0000 (UTC) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 4880 and 3156) --GkobS0RLHmqmxeWkdNo01ptgBXeb57EbE Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 05/16/2016 01:46 PM, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 7:51 AM, Doug Ledford wro= te: >> >> The linux kernel as a whole is, but individual files still retain thei= r >> separate copyright, they don't loose it just because they are shipped = as >> part of the larger kernel. >=20 > .. they do lose it if they have GPL'd code merged into them. >=20 > We do generally try pretty hard to respect dual licensing, though, > just to make it easy to keep drivers that are intentionally shared > with other projects still sharable. >=20 > That said, that is only true for individual drivers that started out > that way. I missed the first part of the private discussion, but "new > files into the subsystem" does not sound like that case, and them > being GPL-only is pretty much the norm. Agreed. That was not my point of contention. > That is particularly true if > that new code came from other places in the kernel (or other GPLv2 > projects), where we don't even have a choice. They were newly written by Christoph, so he has the right to license them as he sees fit. > In other words: >=20 > - I _do_ heavily prefer that we keep dual-licensed drivers > dual-licensed. It's not a _legal_ requirement, but it's certainly a > matter of being polite. >=20 > If the original author of a driver dual-licensed it (or licensed it > under something like a two-clause BSD license that can be converted to > GPLv2), it's just bad form to ignore that original license. >=20 > - the dual-license thing is _particularly_ true if the other license > is actively used by developers who actually give back. If it's some > kind of "we want to keep it dual-licensed without helping maintain > it", I honestly don't give a shit any more. >=20 > IOW, if the people doing all the heavy lifting work on a particular > file are GPL-only, then at that point there is nobody to be polite to > any more. >=20 > Not knowing the details, I have a hard time making any sane judgement c= all. In this particular case, the dual license is used by the OpenFabrics Alliance. They strip the RDMA stack in the kernel down to just the RDMA stack files and ship those separate from the rest of the kernel, along with the necessary user space stuff, and put the entire compilation under the same dual GPL/BSD license. That's what their OFED product is. As I understand it, members of the OFA (Intel, Mellanox, Chelsio, etc.) actually signed an agreement as part of their membership entry into OFA that they would preserve that dual license when submitting code upstream. This was originally intended to make sure that the stack as a whole could be used upstream, in distros, on switches, etc. The idea being that a unified stack that could be copied around would enhance interoperability or something like that. I can't speak to how actively used it is any more. I think maybe on switches or some other dedicated devices. But, I was asked by the OFA to try and preserve it. In this particular case, Christoph wrote his code from scratch. I'm not concerned with it. It was never dual licensed and need not be. But he did submit patches that modified existing dual license drivers to use his new code and removed their own implementation of the same thing in the process. What used to be more or less functional drivers that could be copied and used elsewhere will no longer be able to be copied in the same way. I'm just waiting for Sagi Grimberg to speak for iSER and for Bart van Assche to speak for SRP and let me know that they are OK with the change. I think a patch set that will essentially change the licensing nature of their code should carry their explicit approval of the license change. --=20 Doug Ledford GPG KeyID: 0E572FDD --GkobS0RLHmqmxeWkdNo01ptgBXeb57EbE Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQIcBAEBCAAGBQJXOhAQAAoJELgmozMOVy/d9G8P/2bli7dH55t9bE0541TON+rA 0/Xlu5JpjBkhC+enhzRV5O8E5KTJaZT3KMWdXCmaqsNJxK2rVKfJSoU3E9zHdN7R 02UdbDgmIAwNUCPRoX5Bx3ppzDHeikAMe+r5OfU6Ty8GnNz3cF1rltn6wVddeTsG x4KMv64LhSnbk7DO92BFucAZY47+Af2P3GveOwm6gmx2FFZNo/PbexvU4MooDCJA zgr1NRrjpqNhAW3vbWokZrKAUoUlCZHln9BuCO8AXGDgMGnmttowtMT313mVyYeS nW6vMwsT/RZEhbPW10qfe0wamqsjmx3JNdZKeHJ8sqkalWAz8zm/UnbTb9TqosZh SxP2ke5sndX/rb6dp6F8VAwLTY3izNgvhGNOuBFjDVSSCJrUo1PhT3S8AOzWRWxu 9Rao58pXBKYRiIOHXCmxk2fByDvOk5mlqFbuFmddq49IMp2k0qAnV5x6+caev+4J Zn9OLb4z+xIIWQjKAStGYVUdqKdD9iU29TQPTImD6btkUFSVhFlREBoTRzXCpJWk HkO0A2hkCkA521Dg9y5S7Ki/Ta9gCVPYDm3e0sj9tZhYG91InWoewcmSr+35EL0/ tzJc2X8lpbVW5olwljU/+y0okjm6kUlbmUB1jCqGRQ67CRE+Z3q3QoYSVXAyrNRT cywwnX69XV6gJhyG7yRl =21an -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --GkobS0RLHmqmxeWkdNo01ptgBXeb57EbE--