From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-7.5 required=3.0 tests=DKIMWL_WL_HIGH,DKIM_SIGNED, DKIM_VALID,HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI, MENTIONS_GIT_HOSTING,SPF_PASS,URIBL_BLOCKED,USER_AGENT_MUTT autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from mail.kernel.org (mail.kernel.org [198.145.29.99]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BF7DC169C4 for ; Tue, 29 Jan 2019 05:27:09 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [209.132.180.67]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6809B214DA for ; Tue, 29 Jan 2019 05:27:08 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=default; t=1548739629; bh=Ppe7apii6B7B35dto+rwNyb16avBzR9dDR9rTv+0shU=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:List-ID:From; b=XBuuD+yTJ1+rRSWydZ4P7oF+drsL8UYgiczAvb/OavAGonm7wz+q2SDuGFc8bEAjq eXwD1mrMTaUBlIgXfq39eM9o44zXFfxWetoEPpB30RvhvXNaVPUEfNWsgJarmCKRxZ HjdsJSvk3X6BX5G5tX/S2QoNH3YGIgLueKgAYCac= Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1726298AbfA2F1H (ORCPT ); Tue, 29 Jan 2019 00:27:07 -0500 Received: from mail.kernel.org ([198.145.29.99]:52246 "EHLO mail.kernel.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1725536AbfA2F1G (ORCPT ); Tue, 29 Jan 2019 00:27:06 -0500 Received: from localhost (5356596B.cm-6-7b.dynamic.ziggo.nl [83.86.89.107]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 5C1912175B; Tue, 29 Jan 2019 05:27:05 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=default; t=1548739625; bh=Ppe7apii6B7B35dto+rwNyb16avBzR9dDR9rTv+0shU=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=uqYbw3/ScwS7dR21gXugL713Yv1c391LqxPhVyQHad6OtacyOWnKu3xuRYJuOfGNq ZJRFZr0gRHKNE68UBpaNJGioHdZRm4+hT2vb4knCFjrCoKbjKSaafjrMuWbyXVGlkW ISWzEG4oUIOZw3QLLXXdDzeVKFH+rOdocs6kwOqM= Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2019 06:27:03 +0100 From: Greg KH To: Thomas Gleixner Cc: LKML , Linus Torvalds , Jonathan Corbet , Jessica Yu , Alan Cox , Rusty Russell , Christoph Hellwig , Kate Stewart , Philippe Ombredanne Subject: Re: [PATCH][RFC] module: Cure the MODULE_LICENSE "GPL" vs. "GPL v2" bogosity Message-ID: <20190129052703.GA9753@kroah.com> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.11.2 (2019-01-07) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 11:38:42PM +0100, Thomas Gleixner wrote: > The original MODULE_LICENSE string for kernel modules licensed under the > GPL v2 (only / or later) was simply "GPL", which was - and still is - > completely sufficient for the purpose of module loading and checking > whether the module is free software or proprietary. > > In January 2003 this was changed with commit 3344ea3ad4b7 ("[PATCH] > MODULE_LICENSE and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL support"). This commit can be found in > the history git repository which holds the 1:1 import of Linus' bitkeeper > repository: > > https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tglx/history.git/commit/?id=3344ea3ad4b7c302c846a680dbaeedf96ed45c02 > > The main intention of the patch was to refuse linking proprietary modules > against symbols exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL() at module load time. > > As a completely undocumented side effect it also introduced the distinction > between "GPL" and "GPL v2" MODULE_LICENSE() strings: > > * "GPL" [GNU Public License v2 or later] > * "GPL v2" [GNU Public License v2] > * "GPL and additional rights" [GNU Public License v2 rights and more] > * "Dual BSD/GPL" [GNU Public License v2 > * or BSD license choice] > * "Dual MPL/GPL" [GNU Public License v2 > * or Mozilla license choice] > > This distinction was and still is wrong in several aspects: > > 1) It broke all modules which were using the "GPL" string in the > MODULE_LICENSE() already and were licensed under GPL v2 only. > > A quick license scan over the tree at that time shows that at least 480 > out of 1484 modules have been affected by this change back then. The > number is probably way higher as this was just a quick check for > clearly identifiable license information. > > There was exactly ONE instance of a "GPL v2" module license string in > the kernel back then - drivers/net/tulip/xircom_tulip_cb.c which > otherwise had no license information at all. There is no indication > that the change above is any way related to this driver. The change > happend with the 2.4.11 release which was on Oct. 9 2001 - so quite > some time before the above commit. Unfortunately there is no trace on > the intertubes to any discussion of this. > > 2) The dual licensed strings became ill defined as well because following > the "GPL" vs. "GPL v2" distinction all dual licensed (or additional > rights) MODULE_LICENSE strings would either require those dual licensed > modules to be licensed under GPL v2 or later or just be unspecified for > the dual licensing case. Neither choice is coherent with the GPL > distinction. > > Due to the lack of a proper changelog and no real discussion on the patch > submission other than a few implementation details, it's completely unclear > why this distinction was introduced at all. Other than the comment in the > module header file exists no documentation for this at all. > > From a license compliance and license scanning POV this distinction is a > total nightmare. Many thanks for digging through all of this, it should help out a lot: Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman