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need proprietary alternative to GPL-licensed functions in linux/drivers/base/class.c

August 18th, 2009 - 06:09 pm ET by lightdee | Report spam
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I'm developing a driver for my employer and am using some of the
functions in linux/drivers/base/class.c to work with sysfs & udev:
class_create(), class_device_create(), etc.
I'm using the Centos 5.2 release with Linux kernel 2.6.24.7-65. I had
to change the license to GPL
MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
to get the driver to compile because of the
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(class_create);
in class.c.

I need to keep the driver proprietary, so how do I work with udev and
sysfs without using the functions in class.c? Is there another non-gpl
interface to those systems?

It looks like I'm going to run into this same issue with the lower-
level functions that class_create() calls, like sysfs_create_file(),
kobject_uevent(), etc, so I can't just do an end-run around those
functions.
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#1 David Schwartz
August 24th, 2009 - 04:39 pm ET | Report spam
On Aug 24, 1:16 pm, Chris Friesen wrote:

The point of 3a is that the source is distributed with the app itself,
and is thus always available to anyone who obtains the app at any point
in the future.



No, the point is that it's reasonable available. There is no known
source distribution mechanism that lasts forever. When that clause was
written, floppies were probably envisioned, which last about 8 years
at best.

If you choose to not distribute the source with the app, 3b allows you
to include a written offer to make the source available to any third
party within the next three years.



Right, because the authors felt that three years was a reasonable
amount of time to guarantee validity.

On further reflection, I suspect that accompanying the product with an
unrestricted URL could be argued to fulfill the requirements of 3b in
any case[1], so it's probably better to consider that scenario as
falling under 3b instead of 3a.  In that case it would be sufficient to
keep the URL active for three years.



It's not quite a perfect fit under any of the clauses, but I think I
agree with you that looking at the URL as a written offer to provide
the source code, with the Internet being the customary medium for
software interchange, is the best fit.

DS

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