Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264311AbUD0Tjb (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Apr 2004 15:39:31 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264313AbUD0Tjb (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Apr 2004 15:39:31 -0400 Received: from userel174.dsl.pipex.com ([62.188.199.174]:2945 "EHLO einstein.homenet") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264311AbUD0TjZ (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Apr 2004 15:39:25 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 20:37:46 +0100 (BST) From: Tigran Aivazian X-X-Sender: tigran@einstein.homenet To: Steve Lee cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] Blacklist binary-only modules lying about their license In-Reply-To: <000001c42c8a$485cd950$8119fea9@pluto> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2102 Lines: 44 On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, Steve Lee wrote: > Instead of printing module taint messages to the screen, why couldn't > they just > be written to syslog? Then it wouldn't matter if there were several > taint > messages. For example, I know my nVidia driver taints the kernel, I > don't need > to see that message over and over again. Yes, that is exactly what it was a few years ago when I checked (and probably still is) --- a bug in modutils which needs to be fixed as those messages are too annoying and aggressive. It should be changed to be made possible to disable them via /etc/syslog.conf because a normal user wouldn't have a clue how to disable them otherwise. Those kind of "kernel messages" should not be seen except when a user wants to prepare a bug report and send it to linux-kernel. Then he ought to check dmesg and discover that he is in fact running binary only modules and also he will discover the support email address and send his report there instead of here. Generally, breaking Unix philosophy with such aggressive messages bypassing standard interfaces is what normally happens in commercial Unix-es, which are driven by "market requirements" i.e. dictated by people who have no clue what proper Unix is or should be. So, this part of modutils is, ironically, very much anti-Linux and "commercial Unix"-like, although it tries to look precisely opposite. It should be fixed, imho. I even think that the whole "EXPORT_SYMBOL" vs "EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL" thing is moot and anti-freedom because it violates ability of hackers (even if they happen to work for companies producing binary-only modules, that's irrelevant) to make proper technical design decisions and instead obey some person's idea of what is a "good" or "bad" caller of his API. But so be it, since that's the way Linus and others prefers Linux to be. Kind regards Tigran - 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/