From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754335AbXLEGPS (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Dec 2007 01:15:18 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752052AbXLEGOu (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Dec 2007 01:14:50 -0500 Received: from 74-93-104-97-Washington.hfc.comcastbusiness.net ([74.93.104.97]:57973 "EHLO sunset.davemloft.net" rhost-flags-OK-FAIL-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751791AbXLEGOs (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Dec 2007 01:14:48 -0500 Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:14:47 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <20071204.221447.158735674.davem@davemloft.net> To: ebiederm@xmission.com Cc: greearb@candelatech.com, daniel.lezcano@free.fr, netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, containers@lists.osdl.org, lkml@rtr.ca, shemminger@linux-foundation.org Subject: Re: namespace support requires network modules to say "GPL" From: David Miller In-Reply-To: References: <4755A025.8090903@candelatech.com> X-Mailer: Mew version 5.2 on Emacs 22.1 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:17:57 -0700 > Ben Greear writes: > > > If I *do* need to add some sort of namespace > > awareness to just achieve today's functionality, I don't mind making the > > changes, > > so long as I don't need to change to GPL licensing. Perhaps at the least you > > can export enough symbols w/out GPL tag to achieve backwards compat with .23 > > and previous kernels, or rework dev_get_by_* etc to not need GPL'd namespace > > symbols and just return the device in the default namespace? > > IANAL but to me your code sounds like a derivative work of the linux > kernel. Which implies that if you are distributing your module you > need to change to GPL licensing. The _GPL tag on EXPORT_SYMBOL does > not change those rules. Eric, YANAL and you are also full of hot air. You are really testing my patience on this issue. You fail to ever describe on what factual basis you are making these claims. And the reason is that you have ZERO factual basis for your claims. Here are the facts: 1) Never, ever, have the function for looking up network devices been classified as GPL-only symbols. They provide a device based upon a lookup key. 2) You in no way have changed what those functions do in any way whatsoever. They still provide a reference to a network device based upon a given lookup key. The functions are still doing the same thing they always have. Therefore, you have decided to uniliaterally change the licensing of these functions based solely upon your opinion, and not because of some real change you've made to the code in question. You have no right to do this. This is unreasonable, and you must fix this immediately. And I do mean now, not after you've written several more excessively long diatribes about how you feel in this matter. Thank you.