Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Thu, 11 Oct 2001 21:12:02 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Thu, 11 Oct 2001 21:11:52 -0400 Received: from mail.webmaster.com ([216.152.64.131]:40664 "EHLO shell.webmaster.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id convert rfc822-to-8bit; Thu, 11 Oct 2001 21:11:48 -0400 From: David Schwartz To: CC: X-Mailer: PocoMail 2.51 (988) - Registered Version Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 18:12:13 -0700 In-Reply-To: Subject: Re: Tainted Modules Help Notices Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Message-ID: <20011012011217.AAA27996@shell.webmaster.com@whenever> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org >URLs go bad and non-responsive regularly,,, >john Yes, but modules that have available source code don't often morph into modules that don't. The desired information is whether or not the source code is easily available for debugging. Perhaps the best solution is to develop a 'kernel module license' that simply requires that the source code be made available to anyone who wishes to debug for the purpose of debugging. Complying with the terms of the 'kernel module license' would give you module that don't taint the kernel. The license would be liberal in that it would allow you to impose a wide array of other licensing terms that didn't interfere with debugging. Though NDA requirements or any form of explicit contract to obtain the source wouldn't be allowed. This license wouldn't be compatible with the GPL since it would be considered an additional restriction - the GPL doesn't require you to make source code available to anyone who wants it and this license would require you to do so. It would, however, be compatible with the BSD license. BSD licenses shouldn't automatically cause no tainting of the kernel because the BSD license doesn't assure that the source code will be available. Because this really isn't a copyright enforcement scheme, it's not clear (at least to me) how using the tag falsely would be a DMCA violation. However, if the tag were copyrighted, displaying it falsely would be a violation of several laws (including simple fraud). DS - 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/