dev_printk() is now GPL-only

dev_printk() is now GPL-only

[Matthew Wilcox]

Does dev_driver_string() really need to be GPL-only?  Up to this point,
proprietary modules have been entitled to call dev_printk(), but now:

#define dev_printk(level, dev, format, arg...)  \
        printk(level "%s %s: " format , dev_driver_string(dev) , (dev)->bus_id , ## arg)

with

EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(dev_driver_string);

means that they're not allowed to.

On a related note, one might wonder if

        return dev->driver ? dev->driver->name :
	                        (dev->bus ? dev->bus->name : "");

really qualifies for the full weight of copyright enforcement, and query
whether using it makes your driver a derived work.  Particularly since
all one is doing is asking the kernel for a nice printk prefix and know
nothing about the innards of the device model.

Re: dev_printk() is now GPL-only

[Greg KH]

On Sun, Aug 06, 2006 at 08:57:23PM -0600, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> 
> Does dev_driver_string() really need to be GPL-only?  Up to this point,
> proprietary modules have been entitled to call dev_printk(), but now:
> 
> #define dev_printk(level, dev, format, arg...)  \
>         printk(level "%s %s: " format , dev_driver_string(dev) , (dev)->bus_id , ## arg)
> 
> with
> 
> EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(dev_driver_string);
> 
> means that they're not allowed to.

Oops, good point, I never noticed, as I don't have an closed source
drivers here to test with :)

Care to send me a patch to fix it up?

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: dev_printk() is now GPL-only

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Sun, Aug 06, 2006 at 08:09:58PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> Care to send me a patch to fix it up?

Sorry for the delay ...

Make dev_printk usable from non-GPL modules again

dev_printk now calls dev_driver_string.  We want even proprietary modules
to be calling dev_printk, so the export of dev_driver_string needs to be
non-GPL-only.

Signed-off-by: Matthew Wilcox <matthew@wil.cx>

diff --git a/drivers/base/core.c b/drivers/base/core.c
index be6b5bc..426be09 100644
--- a/drivers/base/core.c
+++ b/drivers/base/core.c
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ const char *dev_driver_string(struct dev
 	return dev->driver ? dev->driver->name :
 			(dev->bus ? dev->bus->name : "");
 }
-EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(dev_driver_string);
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(dev_driver_string);
 
 #define to_dev(obj) container_of(obj, struct device, kobj)
 #define to_dev_attr(_attr) container_of(_attr, struct device_attribute, attr)