Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261279AbTIKN3v (ORCPT ); Thu, 11 Sep 2003 09:29:51 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261281AbTIKN3v (ORCPT ); Thu, 11 Sep 2003 09:29:51 -0400 Received: from ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com ([166.70.28.69]:63301 "EHLO ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261279AbTIKN3u (ORCPT ); Thu, 11 Sep 2003 09:29:50 -0400 To: "David Schwartz" Cc: "Pascal Schmidt" , Subject: Re: People, not GPL [was: Re: Driver Model] References: From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) Date: 11 Sep 2003 07:30:10 -0600 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1277 Lines: 23 "David Schwartz" writes: > The GPL_ONLY stuff is an attempt to restrict use. There is nothing > inherently wrong with attempts to restrict use. One could argue that the > root permission check on 'umount' is a restriction on use. Surely the GPL > doesn't mean you can't have any usage restrictions at all. No the GPL_ONLY stuff is an attempt to document that there is no conceivable way that using a given symbol does not create a derived work. If you use an unmodified kernel it is only a one liner to ensure it does not complain about your code. So this only shows up as a real impediment when code that uses the symbol is distributed. Beyond which copying code into the kernel is when this is checked so this is a valid place to check things. There is a strong tying between using programs and copying them into memory. And that copying is the justification for most usage restrictions even in commercial software. The code is also quite a small nit that really should not affect anything. Eric - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/