Re: The tainted message

Keith Owens
2002-04-28T01:41:43Z

On 27 Apr 2002 20:27:07 -0500,
Richard Thrapp <rthrapp@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 2002-04-27 at 19:27, Keith Owens wrote:
>> On Sat, 27 Apr 2002 16:20:03 +0100 (BST),
>> Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
>> >How about
>> >
>> >Warning: The module you have loaded (%s) does not seem to have an open
>> > source license. Please send any kernel problem reports to the
>> > author of this module, or duplicate them from a boot without
>> > ever loading this module before reporting them to the community
>> > or your Linux vendor
>>
>> I'm going for the current message followed by "See <URL> for more
>> information". <URL> defaults to http://www.tux.org/lkml/#s1-18,
>> vendors who want to point to their policy text can override the URL
>> when they build modutils.
>
>Why did you tell me to ask here and go with what Alan said if you
>weren't going to listen to the discussion? Alan's message corrects all
>of the problems we found. Several people agreed on the basic form. If
>you weren't going to go with the agreed upon result, why did you have me
>ask here? You just wasted a lot of our time. You should have just told
>me earlier that you weren't going to correct it -- I would have accepted
>the decision.

The discussion was useful. I choose to agree with the people who
suggested a URL rather than with Alan's suggestion of an expanded
message. It allows vendors who want to support their customers
directly to add a reference to their policy and remove the load from
l-k.

That is what discussion is for, to bring out possibilities. If you
don't like my decision you are free to ship and maintain your own
modified version of modutils.

>I get sick and tired of maintainers who solicit opinions and then refuse
>to listen to the answers they get back, even when people who know what
>they are doing agree... even when the majority agrees. I've seen it
>happen many times. I know it's the maintainer's choice in the end, but
>don't ask for community opinions unless you're going to listen to them.
>It's insulting and infuriating.

Translation: "I don't like the decision so I will complain about the
maintainer". See above.

>I provide a module, not a distribution. I've found that people want to
>choose their distribution, even sometimes in embedded space, so I let
>them (and I have no interest in providing a distribution anyway). I
>cannot control what modutils they run. But I get bug reports back on
>the module due to the tainted message.

That is one of the many costs you have to bear for shipping binary only
modules. I am not going to make life easier for you. In your original
message to me you made no mention of the fact that you are shipping
binary only modules, if I had know that in advance I would not have
tried to help you, now you have no credibility with me.

>At the very least, -please- change the verb tense of the message to be
>correct. That will at least eliminate the "module doesn't load" bug
>reports (I hope).

The verb tense is correct. The message is issued before the module is
loaded and descibes what is about to occur.