Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[Keith Owens]

I have started work on the patch for /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with the
corresponding modutils and ksymoops changes.  insmod of a non-GPL
module ORs /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with 1, insmod -f ORs with 2.

What to do about modules with no license?  Complain and taint or
silently ignore?  A lot of modules in -ac14 have no MODULE_LICENSE,
probably because they have no MODULE_AUTHOR.  IMHO the default should
be complain and taint, even though it will generate lots of newbie
questions to l-k.

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[André Dahlqvist]

Keith Owens <kaos@ocs.com.au> wrote:

> IMHO the default should be complain and taint, even though it will
> generate lots of newbie questions to l-k.

Wasn't it those questions that this feature was meant to prevent in the
first place?
-- 

André Dahlqvist <andre.dahlqvist@telia.com>

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[Tom Rini]

On Sat, Sep 22, 2001 at 03:33:44PM +0200, Andr? Dahlqvist wrote:
> Keith Owens <kaos@ocs.com.au> wrote:
> 
> > IMHO the default should be complain and taint, even though it will
> > generate lots of newbie questions to l-k.
> 
> Wasn't it those questions that this feature was meant to prevent in the
> first place?

Er, I thought the whole point of this was so that we would know if the
kernel had been 'tainted' by a non-free module that we can't debug.

-- 
Tom Rini (TR1265)
http://gate.crashing.org/~trini/

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[Alan Cox]

> What to do about modules with no license?  Complain and taint or
> silently ignore?  A lot of modules in -ac14 have no MODULE_LICENSE,
> probably because they have no MODULE_AUTHOR.  IMHO the default should
> be complain and taint, even though it will generate lots of newbie
> questions to l-k.

I still have many to do. What would help me no end would be a version of
depmod or similar which warned about modules with 

o	No description
o	No author
o	No license tag

Then we can stage a concerted clean up run

Alan

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[Albert D. Cahalan]

Keith Owens writes:

> I have started work on the patch for /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with the
> corresponding modutils and ksymoops changes.  insmod of a non-GPL
> module ORs /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with 1, insmod -f ORs with 2.

So now these will taint the kernel?

LGPL
2-clause BSD
X11
public domain

They are all non-GPL.

> What to do about modules with no license?  Complain and taint or
> silently ignore?  A lot of modules in -ac14 have no MODULE_LICENSE,
> probably because they have no MODULE_AUTHOR.  IMHO the default should
> be complain and taint, even though it will generate lots of newbie
> questions to l-k.

Give them separate bits.

0x00000001 unknown license
0x00000002 fully GPL-compatible license (GPL, LGPL, 2-clause BSD, X11)
0x00000004 other certified "Open Source" license (MPL, 4-clause BSD)
0x00000008 source available, but w/o certified "Open Source" licensing
0x00000010 no source available
0x00000020 non-redistributable binary
0x10000000 any module at all (prove that user did load a module)
0x20000000 insmod -f
0x40000000 hacked in, using System.map
0x80000000 hacked in with unresolved references

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[Keith Owens]

On Sat, 22 Sep 2001 16:28:48 -0400 (EDT), 
"Albert D. Cahalan" <acahalan@cs.uml.edu> wrote:
>Keith Owens writes:
>> I have started work on the patch for /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with the
>> corresponding modutils and ksymoops changes.  insmod of a non-GPL
>> module ORs /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with 1, insmod -f ORs with 2.
>
>So now these will taint the kernel?
>
>LGPL
>2-clause BSD
>X11
>public domain

No, the list of GPL licenses is taken from include/linux/module.h, q.v.

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[Keith Owens]

On Sat, 22 Sep 2001 17:05:52 +0100 (BST), 
Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
>I still have many to do. What would help me no end would be a version of
>depmod or similar which warned about modules with 
>
>o	No description
>o	No author
>o	No license tag

/sbin/modinfo $(find /lib/modules/`uname -r` -name '*.o')
lists filename, description, author, license and parms, in that order.
Extracting entries marked <none> is left as an exercise for the reader.
License is printed by modutils >= 2.4.9 (not released yet) or the patch
below against 2.4.8.

Index: 9.1/insmod/modinfo.c
--- 9.1/insmod/modinfo.c Wed, 28 Mar 2001 20:49:06 +1000 kaos (modutils-2.4/b/9_modinfo.c 1.6 644)
+++ 9.8(w)/insmod/modinfo.c Sat, 22 Sep 2001 23:17:01 +1000 kaos (modutils-2.4/b/9_modinfo.c 1.6 644)
@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@
  *   Keith Owens <kaos@ocs.com.au> December 1999.
  * Print " persistent" for persistent parameters.
  *   Keith Owens <kaos@ocs.com.au> November 2000.
+ * License support.
+ *   Keith Owens <kaos@ocs.com.au> September 2001.
  */
 
 #ident "$Id$"
@@ -249,6 +251,11 @@ static char *format_query_string(struct 
 				&out_str, last_char - out_str, 0);
 			break;
 
+		case 'l':
+			(void) append_modinfo_tag(f, "license", "<none>",
+				&out_str, last_char - out_str, 1);
+			break;
+
 		case '{':{
 				char tag[128], *end = strchr(in_str, '}');
 				int multi_line;
@@ -267,7 +274,8 @@ static char *format_query_string(struct 
 				strncpy(tag, in_str, end - in_str);
 				tag[end - in_str] = '\0';
 				multi_line = strcmp(tag, "author") == 0 ||
-					     strcmp(tag, "description") == 0;
+					     strcmp(tag, "description") == 0 ||
+					     strcmp(tag, "license") == 0;
 
 				/* Append the tag's value if it exists. */
 				append_modinfo_tag(f, tag, "<none>", &out_str, last_char - out_str, multi_line);
@@ -479,6 +487,7 @@ void modinfo_usage(void)
 	printf("usage: modinfo <options> <module>\n");
 	printf("  -a, --author            display module author\n");
 	printf("  -d, --description       display module description\n");
+	printf("  -l, --license           display module license\n");
 	printf("  -n, --filename          display module filename\n");
 	printf("  -f <str>\n");
 	printf("      --format <str>      print the <query-string>\n");
@@ -499,6 +508,7 @@ int main(int argc, char *argv[])
 	{
 		{"author", 0, 0, 'a'},
 		{"description", 0, 0, 'd'},
+		{"license", 0, 0, 'l'},
 		{"filename", 0, 0, 'n'},
 		{"format", required_argument, 0, 'f'},
 		{"parameters", 0, 0, 'p'},
@@ -507,9 +517,9 @@ int main(int argc, char *argv[])
 		{0, 0, 0, 0}
 	};
 	int do_parameters = 1, opt;
-	char *fmtstr = "filename:    %n\ndescription: %d\nauthor:      %a\n";
+	char *fmtstr = "filename:    %n\ndescription: %d\nauthor:      %a\nlicense:     %l\n";
 
-	while ((opt = getopt_long(argc, argv, "adnq:pf:Vh", long_opts, NULL)) != EOF)
+	while ((opt = getopt_long(argc, argv, "adlnq:pf:Vh", long_opts, NULL)) != EOF)
 		switch (opt) {
 		case 'a':
 			fmtstr = "%a\n";
@@ -517,6 +527,10 @@ int main(int argc, char *argv[])
 			break;
 		case 'd':
 			fmtstr = "%d\n";
+			do_parameters = 0;
+			break;
+		case 'l':
+			fmtstr = "%l\n";
 			do_parameters = 0;
 			break;
 		case 'n':

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[Timur Tabi]

Keith Owens wrote:

> I have started work on the patch for /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with the
> corresponding modutils and ksymoops changes.  insmod of a non-GPL
> module ORs /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with 1, insmod -f ORs with 2.


Where can I find more information about this?  The word "tainted" doesn't 
appear in my kernel source code (I guess 2.4.2 is too old), and a search on 
google didn't reveal anything.

The reason I ask is because I'm working on a closed-source (unfortunately) 
driver for Linux, and I'd really like to make it behave as well as possible.

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[John Levon]

On Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 01:00:24PM -0500, Timur Tabi wrote:

> The reason I ask is because I'm working on a closed-source (unfortunately) 
> driver for Linux, and I'd really like to make it behave as well as possible.

add to your module code :

MODULE_LICENSE("TabiPL");

(or whatever it is).

That way the kernel maintainers can ignore any bugs reported with your module
loaded easily.

regards
john

-- 
"Khendon's Law: If the same point is made twice by the same person,
 the thread is over."

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[Keith Owens]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 13:00:24 -0500, 
Timur Tabi <ttabi@interactivesi.com> wrote:
>Keith Owens wrote:
>
>> I have started work on the patch for /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with the
>> corresponding modutils and ksymoops changes.  insmod of a non-GPL
>> module ORs /proc/sys/kernel/tainted with 1, insmod -f ORs with 2.
>
>Where can I find more information about this?  The word "tainted" doesn't 
>appear in my kernel source code (I guess 2.4.2 is too old), and a search on 
>google didn't reveal anything.

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=99922065229945&w=2 and
the rest of the thread.

Re: Tainting kernels for non-GPL or forced modules

[Alan Cox]

> The reason I ask is because I'm working on a closed-source (unfortunately) 
> driver for Linux, and I'd really like to make it behave as well as possible.

Add a

MODULE_LICENSE("(c) copyright foo, readers will be mangled with the DMCA")

or appropriate tag to it.

That tag is read by modutils (and ignored by older ones) and tells it the
code is non free. 

Nvidia asked about the MODULE_LICENSE tag code being GPL so to make them 
happy I also released it as below to avoid any confusion

Alan

--

Alan Cox hereby grants all parties the right to use and distribute his
MODULE_LICENSE() macro in both source and binary forms, for the purpose of 
identifying the license on software 

Subject to the follow conditions:

 *	The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote
 *	products derived from this software without specific prior
 *	written permission.

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