On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, Pavel Roskin wrote: > 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
No, thanks. Nothing has changed dramatically enough in 5 months to necessitate this change, and it's certainly not going to happen for a single binary driver. What is wrong with creating a (GPL'd) abstraction layer that exports symbols to the proprietary modules? Thanks, Pat - 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/