Messages in this thread Patch in this message |  | | Date | Wed, 17 Oct 2001 15:15:34 +0100 | From | John Levon <> | Subject | Re: GPLONLY kernel symbols??? |
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On Wed, Oct 17, 2001 at 12:17:39PM +1000, Keith Owens wrote:
> If a symbol has been exported with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL then it appears as > unresolved for modules that do not have a GPL compatible MODULE_LICENCE > string. So when a module without a GPL compatible MODULE_LICENCE gets > an unresolved symbol, I print that message as a hint to the user. I > thought the response was obvious, but looks like I need to expand the > hint text even further.
How is the name mangled in the _GPL case ? Can't this be detected explicitly ?
richard, since ac seems OK with it ...
thanks john
--- faq.html Thu Oct 11 18:42:44 2001 +++ faqnew.html Wed Oct 17 15:22:17 2001 @@ -513,6 +513,10 @@ and Alan Cox's -ac series of patches?</A> </LI> +<LI> +<A HREF="#s1-22">What does it mean for a module to be tainted ?</A> +</LI> + </OL> <H4> @@ -1794,6 +1798,37 @@ </UL> +<LI> +<A NAME="s1-22"></A><B>What does it mean for a module to be tainted?</B> +</LI> + +<UL> +<LI> +Some vendors distribute binary modules (i.e. modules without available +source code under a free software license). +As the source is not freely available, any bugs uncovered whilst such +modules are loaded cannot be investigated by the kernel hackers. All +problems discovered whilst such a module is loaded must be reported +to the vendor of that module, <I>not</I> the Linux kernel hackers and +the linux-kernel mailing list. The tainting scheme is used to identify +bug reports from kernels with binary modules loaded: such kernels are +marked as "tainted" by means of the <TT>MODULE_LICENSE</TT> tag. If a +module is loaded that does not specify an approved license, the kernel +is marked as tainted. The canonical list of approved license strings +is in <TT>linux/include/module.h</TT>.<BR> +"oops" reports marked as tainted are of no use to the kernel developers +and will be ignored. A warning is output when such a module is loaded. +Note that you may come across module source that is under a compatible +license, but does not have a suitable <TT>MODULE_LICENSE</TT> tag. If you +see a warning from <TT>modprobe</TT> or <TT>insmod</TT> for a module +under a compatible license, please report this bug to the maintainers of +the module, so that they can add the necessary tag. +<P><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">(KO)</FONT> If a symbol has been exported with +EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL then it appears as unresolved for modules that do not +have a GPL compatible MODULE_LICENSE string, and prints a warning. +</LI> +</UL> + </OL> <H2> -- "There are two kinds of fool. One says, 'This is old, and therefore good.' And one says, 'This is new, and therefore better'." - John Brunner - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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