Hello!
I'm writing a module under a proprietary license. I decided to use sysfs to do the configuration. Unfortunately, all sysfs exports are available to GPL modules only because they are exported by EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.
I have found the original e-mail where this change was proposed: http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0409.3/0345.html
Patrick writes:
"The users of these functions are all, in most cases, other subsystems, which provide a layer of abstraction for the downstream users (drivers, etc)."
Maybe it was true in September 2004, but it's not true in February 2005. sysfs has become a standard way to make configurable parameters available to userspace, just like sysctl and ioctl.
All I want to do is to have a module that would create subdirectories for some network interfaces under /sys/class/net/*/, which would contain additional parameters for those interfaces. I'm not creating a new subsystem or anything like that. sysctl is not good because the data is interface specific. ioctl on a socket would be OK, although it wouldn't be easily scriptable. The restriction on sysfs symbols would just force me to write a proprietary userspace utility to set those parameters instead of using a shell script.
My understanding is that EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is only useful for symbols so specific to the kernel that the modules that use them would be effectively based on GPL code. But a module providing its internal state to the userspace doesn't need to be based on the kernel code in any way.
Please replace every EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL with EXPORT_SYMBOL in fs/sysfs/*.c
-- Regards, Pavel Roskin - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
