On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 04:29:22PM +0300, Boaz Harrosh wrote: > On 15/05/18 15:03, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > > You're getting dangerously close to admitting that the entire point > > of this exercise is so that you can link non-GPL NetApp code into the > > kernel in clear violation of the GPL. > > It is not that at all. What I'm trying to do is enable a zero-copy, > synchronous, low latency, low overhead. highly parallel - a new modern > interface with application servers. ... and fully buzzword compliant. > You yourself had such a project that could easily be served out-of-the-box > with zufs, of a device that wanted to sit in user-mode. For a very different reason. I think the source code to that project is publically available; the problem is that it's not written in C. > Sometimes it is very convenient and needed for Servers to sit in > user-mode. And this interface allows that. And it is not always > a licensing thing. Though yes licensing is also an issue sometimes. > It is the reality we are living in. > > But please indulge me I am curious how the point of signing /sbin/ > servers, made you think about GPL licensing issues? > > That said, is your point that as long as user-mode servers are sloooowwww > they are OK to be supported but if they are as fast as the kernel, > (as demonstrated a zufs based FS was faster then xfs-dax on same pmem) > Then it is a GPL violation? No. Read what Linus wrote: NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work". What you're doing is far beyond that exception. You're developing in concert a userspace and kernel component, and claiming that the GPL does not apply to the userspace component. I'm not a lawyer, but you're on very thin ice.
