On Wed, 8 Feb 2006, Greg KH wrote: > Currently we don't have a way to show people that some kernel symbols > will be changed in the future from EXPORT_SYMBOL() to > EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(). As we all know, not everyone reads the > Documentation/feature_removal.txt file, so we need a bigger way to > remind people.
Ok, two years from now isn't much but might be sufficient time left to switch to a different OS if needed. So we need to make a decision now. Following the usb-part of the patch wrt. feature-removal-schedule I'd like to ask here as follows: Given an existing driver for an existing device (FWIW, pretty special device, nothing consumer-like, think of several 10k$ value) which: * lives in kernel space using the current EXPORT_SYMBOL api * is not derived from any GPL code thus not "GPL-infected" * is not open source due to the copyright holder's free decision * implements several usb configurations and interfaces which have certain requirements ruling out a userspace driver in the past and future * was validated and approved by the FDA so any change is very expensive * is almost impossible to migrate to usbfs due to FDA regulatory affairs because libusb or whatever would become part of the critical path - even if it were technically possible I'm looking for some statement how the USB-api will provide the backward compatibility. If I understand this patch correctly, the intention is to declare the usb-driver-api non-existing in two years from now. I'm sure this was thoroughly discussed somewhere, but I probably missed that. Where can I find a pointer to the discussion of this decision? Is there any other suggestion then either creating an individual (GPL) api for such a driver or switching to an OS with sane api? Regards, Martin ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=103432&bid=230486&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net To unsubscribe, use the last form field at: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-usb-devel
