From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Daniel Phillips Subject: Re: [RFC/PATCH 1/2] in-kernel sockets API Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:48:56 -0700 Message-ID: <44904C08.6020307@google.com> References: <1150156562.19929.32.camel@w-sridhar2.beaverton.ibm.com> <20060613140716.6af45bec@localhost.localdomain> <20060613052215.B27858@openss7.org> <448F2A49.5020809@google.com> <20060614133022.GU11863@sunbeam.de.gnumonks.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: bidulock@openss7.org, Stephen Hemminger , Sridhar Samudrala , netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from smtp-out.google.com ([216.239.45.12]:9957 "EHLO smtp-out.google.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932235AbWFNRtY (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:49:24 -0400 To: Harald Welte In-Reply-To: <20060614133022.GU11863@sunbeam.de.gnumonks.org> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org Hi Harald, You wrote: > On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 02:12:41PM -0700, I wrote: > >>This has the makings of a nice stable internal kernel api. Why do we want >>to provide this nice stable internal api to proprietary modules? > > because there is IMHO legally nothing we can do about it anyway. Speaking as a former member of a "grey market" binary module vendor that came in from the cold I can assure you that the distinction between EXPORT and EXPORT_GPL _is_ meaningful. That tainted flag makes it extremely difficult to do deals with mainstream Linux companies and there is always the fear that it will turn into a legal problem. The latter bit tends to make venture capitalists nervous. That said, the EXPORT_GPL issue is not about black and white legal issues, it is about gentle encouragement. In this case we are offering a clumsy, on-the-metal, guaranteed-to-change-and-make-you-edit-code interface to non-GPL-compatible modules and a decent, stable (in the deserves to live sense) interface for the pure of heart. Gentle encouragement at exactly the right level. Did we settle the question of whether these particular exports should be EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL? Regards, Daniel