Re: [PATCH 05/22] mm: export alloc_pages_vma

Christoph Hellwig
2019-06-25T07:23:17Z

On Mon, Jun 24, 2019 at 11:24:48AM -0700, Dan Williams wrote:
> I asked for this simply because it was not exported historically. In
> general I want to establish explicit export-type criteria so the
> community can spend less time debating when to use EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
> [1].
>
> The thought in this instance is that it is not historically exported
> to modules and it is safer from a maintenance perspective to start
> with GPL-only for new symbols in case we don't want to maintain that
> interface long-term for out-of-tree modules.
>
> Yes, we always reserve the right to remove / change interfaces
> regardless of the export type, but history has shown that external
> pressure to keep an interface stable (contrary to
> Documentation/process/stable-api-nonsense.rst) tends to be less for
> GPL-only exports.

Fully agreed. In the end the decision is with the MM maintainers,
though, although I'd prefer to keep it as in this series.