GPL, GPFS, and exporting kernel symbols

GPL, GPFS, and exporting kernel symbols

Posted Feb 27, 2004 17:10 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)
In reply to: GPL, GPFS, and exporting kernel symbols by simlo
Parent article: invalidate_mmap_range() again

It's even easier than that.

IBM could simply create a second glue layer, one which does nothing but re-export invalid_mmap_range in a way that the module loader would be willing to link to the GPFS module. License that layer as GPL.

Or provide an enhanced Insmod program that can take a module that in no way offers a GPL license and converts the symbol references properly so they link up to _GPLONLY symbols.

I think the only legal effect EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL has is that it makes it really hard to use a subroutine without the author's permission by mistake (or claim that you did it by mistake). But whether the author's permission has any legal bearing is an open question.

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