UAPI syscall exception interpretation

[Greg KH]

On Thu, May 12, 2022 at 11:21:03PM +0000, Muhammad Ali wrote:
> From: Greg KH
> Sent: May 12, 2022 12:03 AM
> To: Muhammad Ali <M.ALI023 at hotmail.com>
> Cc: Kernelnewbies at kernelnewbies.org <Kernelnewbies at kernelnewbies.org>
> Subject: Re: UAPI syscall exception interpretation
> 
> >On Wed, May 11, 2022 at 09:19:42PM +0000, >Muhammad Ali wrote:
> >> Consider a file: ftpclient.c
> >> Only include is: #include <sys/socket.h>
> >> Then a few hundred lines of personal code.
> >> Then compiler/linker take in ftpcliebt.c and >produce a.out (statically or dynamically linked, >consider both cases if it makes a licensing >difference)
> >>
> >> Does the Linux-syscall-note say that a.out can >ALL be under any license of your choice?
> >>
> >> Or do you have to note that your binary is under >License X and also includes code which is under >license GPL-2.0-WITH-Linux-syscall-note?
> 
> >For legal issues, please contact a lawyer.  You >wouldn't ask a random
> >internet mailing list full of programmers questions >about dental care,
> >right?  :)
> >
> >Good luck!
> >
> >greg k-h
> 
> Happy to see you responded Greg,  since you have marked this issue as low priority since 2020, see https://lkml.org/lkml/2020/2/23/105

Other things happened in 2020 that pushed this to the back of the list.

> If we could finally get some clarity or examples to illustrate the exception and license, 2 years later, then that would be very nice, because I am not the only one who is thinking that the current syscall exception text and license.rst are not giving a clear interpretation as to when the GPL applies and on what code it applies. What do I tell the lawyer? “Here’s some conflicting licensing guide and license text and Greg said, on the mailing list, that things will be ‘made obvious’ but nothing has changed so just provide me with what you think”? Shouldn’t I be saying that sentence to the kernel maintainers, instead?

If you have a lawyer that has issues with the current wording and you
need help with that, please let me know and I can put them in contact
with lawyers who can help them understand the issues involved.

thanks,

greg k-h