From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264119AbTLJXiV (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:38:21 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264127AbTLJXiV (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:38:21 -0500 Received: from ppp-217-133-42-200.cust-adsl.tiscali.it ([217.133.42.200]:15326 "EHLO dualathlon.random") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264119AbTLJXiT (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:38:19 -0500 Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 00:39:59 +0100 From: Andrea Arcangeli To: Larry McVoy , Kendall Bennett , Linus Torvalds , "'Andre Hedrick'" , "'Arjan van de Ven'" , Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause? Message-ID: <20031210233959.GF11193@dualathlon.random> References: <00af01c3bf41$2db12770$d43147ab@amer.cisco.com> <3FD7081D.31093.61FCFA36@localhost> <20031210221800.GM6896@work.bitmover.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20031210221800.GM6896@work.bitmover.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i X-GPG-Key: 1024D/68B9CB43 13D9 8355 295F 4823 7C49 C012 DFA1 686E 68B9 CB43 X-PGP-Key: 1024R/CB4660B9 CC A0 71 81 F4 A0 63 AC C0 4B 81 1D 8C 15 C8 E5 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Dec 10, 2003 at 02:18:00PM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: > interfaces, the EXPORT_GPL stuff, all of that as a way to delibrately forget EXPORT_GPL, that's an hint, all _GPL can be removed, and any EXPORT_SYMBOL can be added. what is a derived work or not, what is legal or not, has nothing to do with whatever EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL or even with EXPORT_SYMBOL. Clearly if we export everything with EXPORT_SYMBOL we make life easier to illegal people, that's why using EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL can make sense, but any distributor is free to drop all _GPL tags everywhere, and export every single kernel function with EXPORT_SYMBOL. If somebody than makes a derived work through those exported symbols illegally, that's his own problem. The distributor has no control on the export symbol users. just look vmmon, that's a derived work with a non GPL compatible licence, it does everything through exported symbols but it doesn't mean it's not a derivative work.