[OpenAFS-devel] Re: [OpenAFS] 2.6 kernel support anytime soon? Workarounds?

[Troy Benjegerdes]

On Mon, May 10, 2004 at 02:03:24PM -0400, Derrick J Brashear wrote:
> On Mon, 10 May 2004, Pete Zaitcev wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 10 May 2004 13:47:32 -0400 (EDT)
> > Garrett Wollman <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > <<On Mon, 10 May 2004 13:25:05 -0400, "chas williams (contractor)" <chas@cmf.nrl.navy.mil> said:
> > >
> > > > i imagine this would be violating the spirit of export_symbol_gpl().
> > >
> > > On the other hand, you could write a shim layer that implements a
> > > cross-platform API for security-label management.  Then it could also
> > > be made to work under FreeBSD as well, and the GPL weenies wouldn't
> > > have a leg to stand on.
> >
> > Send me patches when you're done, I'll have a look.
> 
> It would be nice, and it's even come up before:
> https://lists.openafs.org/pipermail/openafs-info/2004-February/012457.html
> 
> But given what seems like a lack of cooperation so far, what's the right
> path to build a consensus almost all (likely) relevant parties as to what
> that API should include?

Given that the primary users are going to be openafs, NFSv4, and maybe
someday Lustre.. I would propose the first step be a dual GPL/BSD
licensed module that can encapsulate all of the PAG functionality
openafs needs. The linux development model is more along the lines of
"show me working code, we can change the API later".

I think the GPL weenies would be quite happy with a GPL/BSD module that
does little more than re-export the security things openafs needs, *AS
LONG AS* it is available separately from openafs, and that a 'good
faith' effort was made to make it useable for other filesystems. I would
consider just thinking about it enough effort until NFSv4 or Lustre
people show up to make comments once it's working for openafs.