Re: 2.6.16 serious consequences / GPL_EXPORT_SYMBOL / USB drivers of major vendor excluded

From: Greg KH
Date: Sun Feb 05 2006 - 15:55:00 EST


On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 05:24:10PM +0100, s.schmidt@xxxxxx wrote:
> on January 15th / major change in USB subsystem and GPL_EXPORT_SYMBOL
> declaration
> Greg Kroah-Hartman added a Patch to kernel 2.6.15-git12, which
> substantially changed the USB system.

Have you asked Greg why he did this?

Have you asked what the other alternatives are?

You do know about usbfs/libusb that allows you to write USB drivers in
userspace that can go at the full speed of the USB bus? Why not redo
your code to take advantage of this? If you do that, the extra bonus is
that your drivers will also work on the BSDs and possibly Windows with
no changes needed (I think libusb works on Windows...)

> This mail is not intended to provoke a discussion of open vs closed source.
> The only intention of this mail is to make you aware of the consequences of
> such a decision.

I was not aware of your drivers, but now that you have informed me of
them, I am willing to work with you to figure out how to resolve this
issue.

thanks,

greg k-h
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