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Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 15:15:34 +0100
From: John Levon <moz@compsoc.man.ac.uk>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: kaos@ocs.com.au, rgooch@atnf.csiro.au
Subject: Re: GPLONLY kernel symbols???
Message-ID: <20011017151534.B91069@compsoc.man.ac.uk>
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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
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