Re: [PATCH 2.5.5] do export vmalloc_to_page to modules...

[Alexander Viro]

On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, Alan Cox wrote:

> >  EXPORT_SYMBOL(vfree);
> >  EXPORT_SYMBOL(__vmalloc);
> > -EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(vmalloc_to_page);
> > +EXPORT_SYMBOL(vmalloc_to_page);
> 
> The authors of that code made it GPL. You have no right to change that. Its
> exactly the same as someone taking all your code and making it binary only.
> 
> You are
> 	-	subverting a digital rights management system
> 			[5 years jail in the USA]
> 	-	breaking a license
> 
> but worse than that you are ignoring the basic moral rights of the authors
> of that code.

Alan, that's crap.  The function in question can be trivially turned into
extern inline and removed from export list completely.  _If_ such change
can be made illegal by exporting uninligned version with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
- I'm going to fork the tree *now* and start replacing the stuff exported
that way with untainted clean reimplementations.  As much as I despise
binary-only modules, any mechanism that allows games of that kind needs
to be killed.  One shouldn't be able to prohibit equivalent transformations
of core code (and inlining a function _is_ such transformation) by pulling
the licensing crap.