-----Original Message-----
From: Greg KH [mailto:greg at kroah.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 2:44 PM
To: Jeff Haran; Sengottuvelan S; Kernel Newbies
Subject: Re: GPL-only symbol Error

On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 02:35:24PM -0800, Jeff Haran wrote:

quoted

I've seen others when faced with this who build their own kernels

from

quoted

sources just modify the problematic EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL()s to
EXPORT_SYMBOL()s. I don't know if that is legal. I wouldn't do it
personally. Consult a lawyer before you go down that road.

It is not legal and companies have gotten into big trouble by trying

to

do that, or by creating "gpl-condom" kernel modules that wrap gpl-only
symbols and export them again.  Do not do that without the full buy-in
from your legal department as they do not want to hear about it from

an

external query first.

Greg,

Just curious, can you provide links to these cases?

I've read the COPYING file at the top of the Linux source tree. I am not
a lawyer, but I don't see anything in it that would prohibit somebody
from taking the GPL kernel sources, changing the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL()s to
EXPORT_SYMBOL()s, publishing that modified kernel source as required by
the GPL license but then keep their module source that uses the now
non-GPL symbols private. It seems like it should be prohibited in the
spirit of open source, but I don't see any mention of these symbol
declarations in the license.

Thanks,

Jeff Haran