on January 15th / major change in USB subsystem and GPL_EXPORT_SYMBOL declaration Greg Kroah-Hartman added a Patch to kernel 2.6.15-git12, which substantially changed the USB system. The module "usb.c" is now a module named "driver.c" which exports its symbols with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL: -> usb_match_id; usb_register_driver; usb_deregister Novell added the official kernel 2.6.16 incl. this patch to OSS 10.1 beta. consequences Because of the GPL_EXPORT declaration it is no longer possible to build and run non-GPL loadable drivers for USB devices. We´ve put a lot of energy into providing the open source community with Linux drivers for nearly all of our products within the last six years. Today, the customer has the option to choose Windows or Linux drivers for AVM USB products. AVM is the market leader in the ISDN controller market with more than 80% market share in Germany (close to 50% in Europe). Moreover AVM is one of a handful manufacturers who provide a Linux driver for their WLAN USB devices. Technically, there are a number of reasons, e.g. service quality and reliability, to establish kernel mode drivers for communication devices offering services like Fax G3, analog modem etc. by means of software. conclusion If it is no longer possible to have non-GPL USB drivers, we shall have to drop our Linux support for all AVM USB devices. We would even have to discontinue the 802.11g++ WLAN USB device driver Linux developement. This mail is not intended to provoke a discussion of open vs closed source. The only intention of this mail is to make you aware of the consequences of such a decision. Kind Regards Sven Schmidt AVM Audiovisuelles Marketing und Computersysteme GmbH Alt-Moabit 95, 10559 Berlin, Germany http://www.avm.de