Re: inter_module_get and __symbol_get

[Brian Gerst <bgerst@didntduck.org>]

Terence Ripperda wrote:
> it would seem like the old mechanism was preferable, but perhaps I'm
> missing something. in this particular case, there are times when a user
> wants to avoid using agp at all for testing purposes, but if I
> understand correctly, we'll be forced to load agpgart anyways due to
> unresolved symbols.

In 2.6, the "agpgart" module is just the core.  Without a gart driver 
loaded (via-agp for example), it does nothing.  If you really don't want 
to have the hard dependency on agpgart, make the code using it 
conditionally compile on CONFIG_AGP or something.

> but I think Keith Owens was correct in his larger picture view that
> this mechanism is useful for much more than just agp. I'm just
> confused why it was regressed from a non-gpl symbol to a gpl symbol
> (or more appropriately why the non-gpl symbol was regressed in favor
> of a gpl-only symbol).

symbol_get in it's current form is hard-coded to look for GPL symbols, 
hence it is exported GPL only.  I have a rough patch that will allow 
symbol_get to use the license status of its caller to determine which 
symbols it can find.  However this depends on whether or not 
symbol_get() is removed like some people want.

--
				Brian Gerst