From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Tue, 4 Sep 2001 23:30:45 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Tue, 4 Sep 2001 23:30:35 -0400 Received: from mail.webmaster.com ([216.152.64.131]:39316 "EHLO shell.webmaster.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Tue, 4 Sep 2001 23:30:23 -0400 From: "David Schwartz" To: "Keith Owens" , "Andrea Arcangeli" Cc: Subject: RE: Linux 2.4.9-ac6 Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 20:30:42 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <16601.999654671@kao2.melbourne.sgi.com> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 15:05:29 +0200, > Andrea Arcangeli wrote: > The next version of insmod will warn about modules with no > MODULE_LICENSE at all and inform about modules with proprietary > licences. Both cases will mark the kenrel as tainted which will show > up on bug reports. That really doesn't make sense. Nothing changes in the kernel or the module based upon whether you have the source or not. What should logically taint the kernel are modules that weren't compiled for that exact kernel version or are otherwise mismatched. One can make the argument that the kernel is tainted if a module wasn't compiled on that machine with that kernel version. One can make the argument that the kernel is tainted if the module was compiled against different configuration or header files. Once can make the argument that the kernel is tainted if a module is loaded whose source isn't part of the general Linux distribution. One can make all sorts of logical arguments about what taints the kernel, but how can the license of a module taint the kernel? You can't even argue that if it's GPL, anyone can get the source to debug it. The GPL does not require that the source code be made available to the general public. Perhaps the kernel is tainted if that module wasn't built from source on that machine? What's the logic here?! DS