Re: People, not GPL [was: Re: Driver Model]

Eric W. Biederman
2003-09-11T13:29:51Z

"David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com> 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