Re: [RFC] dynamic syscalls revisited

[Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>]

On Mon, 2004-12-06 at 10:32 -0700, Zwane Mwaikambo wrote:

> 
> I didn't know we were on a crusade to end all binary modules at all costs. 
> Why not just make _all_ symbols in the kernel EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL then? I 
> really believe this is taking things to new levels of silliness, we should 
> also possibly consider adding code in glibc to stop proprietary 
> libraries/applications from running. What do you think?

Personally? I don't really care. But what goes in the main linux kernel
is decided by Linus, and he doesn't want dynamic system calls because...

Back in 2000 Linus wrote:

The problem is that dynamic system calls are not going to happen.

Why?

License issues. I will not allow system calls to be added from modules.
Because I do not think that adding a system call is a valid thing for a
module to do. It's that easy.

It's the old thing about "hooks". You must not sidestep the GPL by just
putting a hook in place. And dynamic system calls are the ultimate hook.

                Linus


And I was just trying to solve the one reason that I can understand why
Linus doesn't want dynamic system calls. If Linus had not stated this, I
would not be changing my original patch (which is still available and
doesn't do any of this nastiness).

-- Steve