RE: [PATCH v2 5/5] memory: renesas-rpc-if: Export symbols as GPL

[Prabhakar Mahadev Lad]

Hi Krzysztof,

Thank you for the review.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: 28 November 2020 11:42
> To: Prabhakar Mahadev Lad <prabhakar.mahadev-lad.rj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Sergei Shtylyov <sergei.shtylyov@xxxxxxxxx>; Philipp Zabel <p.zabel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; Jiri Kosina
> <trivial@xxxxxxxxxx>; Mark Brown <broonie@xxxxxxxxxx>; linux-renesas-soc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Pavel Machek
> <pavel@xxxxxxx>; Geert Uytterhoeven <geert+renesas@xxxxxxxxx>; linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Prabhakar
> <prabhakar.csengg@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 5/5] memory: renesas-rpc-if: Export symbols as GPL
> 
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 07:11:46PM +0000, Lad Prabhakar wrote:
> > Renesas RPC-IF driver is licensed under GPL2.0, to be in sync export the
> > symbols as GPL.
> 
> It's not a valid reason to export them as GPL. Entire Linux source code
> is licensed as GPL-2.0, so are you going to change all EXPORT_SYMBOL to
> GPL?
> 
Agreed not a valid case. That clears my understanding wrt GPL exports 😊 

> Please describe it better. Usually the symbols are exported as GPL if
> they are considered tightly coupled with the kernel code. So tightly
> that basically it is not a interface anymore but part of kernel
> internals and therefore any usage of it is a derivative work of Linux
> kernel. If this is the case here, please describe in commit msg why
> these match this criteria.
> 
Thank you for the clarification. The symbols can remain exported without GPL as this is not tightly coupled to the kernel.

Cheers,
Prabhakar