Re: Re-enabling non-GPL driver access to disk partition information
From: Derek Atkins
Date: Fri Jan 29 2010 - 10:39:17 EST
Hi,
Rik van Riel <riel@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> RCU is patented, with permission for GPL code to use the algorithm.
>
> Exposing RCU bits to non-GPL modules would be rather pointless, since
> those don't have permission (from IBM, the RCU patent holder) to use
> RCU, anyway.
I'm neither asking for or suggesting non-GPL access to RCU. Rather I'm
asking for non-GPL access to genhd partition information. In particular
I'm looking for:
- # of actual partitions (which I used to obtain by iterating the table
and counting -- yes, I know, gross)
- for each partition:
* partition start sector
* partition size
Alan Cox <alan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>> get information about existing partitions. All those interfaces are now
>> GPL-Only,
>
> The kernel is GPL licensed. Please don't assume an EXPORT_SYMBOL() means
> the GPL does not apply or that this magically indicates it isn't a
> derivative work.
I'm not making that assumption, and the lawyers involved have made that
very very clear. (I've spent more time in meetings with lawyers in the
past month than I have working on code). However, that's why I'm just
asking for EXPORT_SYMBOL() instead of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(), because I'm
not sure I can license my module under the GPL (although it can be
released under other licenses, but that doesn't give me access to
GPL-Only symbols).
I'd prefer to be able to access the partition objects directly as I had
been doing for a couple years. However I do have other alternatives if
this patch (or something like it) wont be accepted.
-derek
--
Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/ PP-ASEL-IA N1NWH
warlord@xxxxxxx PGP key available
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