netdev - Re: [PATCH 0/9] use network namespace for iSCSI control interfaces

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Message-ID: <87mv3fo1ok.fsf@xmission.com>
Date:   Tue, 21 Nov 2017 13:46:03 -0600
From:   ebiederm@...ssion.com (Eric W. Biederman)
To:     David Laight <David.Laight@...LAB.COM>
Cc:     'Chris Leech' <cleech@...hat.com>,
        "netdev\@vger.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        "containers\@lists.linux-foundation.org" 
        <containers@...ts.linux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/9] use network namespace for iSCSI control interfaces

David Laight <David.Laight@...LAB.COM> writes:

> To make matters even more annoying the functions for holding and
> releasing a namespace are GPL_ONLY :-(

I am going to pick on this by itself for a moment without mentioning
anything else, so as hopefully not to derail what otherwise sounds
like a good technical conversation.

So far every time when someone has complained to me about things being
GPL_ONLY and I have looked into it, all I have seen is someone trying
to come up with a way to release derivative works of the kernel without
honoring the terms of the GPLv2.

I read through the US Code a while back to see if I could understand
what is legaly defined as a derivative work, and my impression at the
time was that the FSF is quite conservative in what they consider a
derivative work, and probably the scope is much wider.

So when people start complaining about things being GPLv2 those are the
most annoying bug reports I ever deal with, as almost invariably people
just want to take from the community and don't want to work with every
one else.

It is especially annoying because I have never seen a case where there
is a good justification for a kernel export being anything other than
GPL_ONLY.  That is the kernel's license after all, and if you are using
kernel internal functions the chance that your code is not a derivative
work is about 0.

Eric