Re: [PATCH 0/1] refcount: restore kref_get and kref_put to non-GPL status

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

On Wed, Mar 08, 2017 at 01:25:48AM -0800, john.hubbard@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> From: John Hubbard <jhubbard@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Say, I'm 99% sure that this was just an oversight, so
> I'm sticking my neck out here and floating a patch to
> Put Things Back. I'm hoping that there is not some
> firm reason to GPL-protect the basic kref_get and
> kref_put routines, because when designing some
> recent new (open-source, yay!) device drivers, we relied
> on this being available, even for MIT-licensed code.

MIT-licensed code should be just fine with GPL symbols, just use the
correct MODULE_LICENSE() setting and all is good.

As all of the previous kref functions were in a GPL-only header file,
and included directly that way, they were already GPL-only symbols, so
there really was no change here except now the linker checks them.  If
you have questions about using inline GPL-only functions from a .h file,
in a non-GPL codebase, please consult your corporate lawyer to get
clarification.

thanks,

greg k-h