Proprietary kernel modules

[jucs]

Hi all of you,

today I got the new (german) Linux-Magazine - they wrote about the future of propietary drivers in the kernel. The article says that they're going to be removed till January 2008.
It says, the kernel will not load a module that has no GPL-Lic anymore.

But what should prevent me from simply removing that line in the kernel source?

[techieMoe]

That's actually not an up-to-date statement. Linus was quoted as saying that it was *possible* to block them, and one developer did write the code to do it, but Linus objected to it and the code was subsequently removed.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061215-8428.html

[likwid]

Hah, good thing for the company I work for... our linux product relies on a proprietary module.

Shutting out something from participation even though it's proprietary is almost against linux philosophy IMO.

[jucs]

Shutting out something from participation even though it's proprietary is almost against linux philosophy IMO.

That's my opionion, too. Freedom includes the right to use bad software, even if that might be not good for you or your system. The only thing they should do is tell you about what you do...

But the point in my question was - are they able to stop us using those modules? Some function would have to check the licence and return if it is GPLed or not. I don't think it would be much work to patch the kernel against that...

I'm sorry for my english!

[likwid]

I doubt it would be that hard, as said someone already developed code for it. The system registers when dumped on a system with a proprietary module show the kernel is tainted with a code of P and lsmod even shows the module is tainted. The module insertion code would just have to do some kind of check if module = tainted, exit module insertion code with a return status of whatever.

[jucs]

That's it. And the only thing you have to do is "edit" that check-function a bit, so that it'll always return the GPL-return-value....

The point is, it'll be hard to force people to do things or do things not with OpenSource-Software like the kernel...

[jens]

The GPL had nothing to do with it and also never forbid you to do this(adding non gpl modules in userland).
The GPL doesn't cover the way you use software. It's only about the distribution.


"Illegally derived or not" doesn't even matter here, that's a different problem. The GPL doesn't restrict you in anyway of using this software in userland.
Their's simply no reason for disabling/breaking this.

[burntfuse]

Good for Linus for getting that removed... Actually, even though I'm a big fan of open-source, I'd like to see just the opposite for modules - a way to write binary drivers that could be written once and inserted into any kernel (in the same 2.x series, of course), so that hardware manufacturers could just distribute binary Linux drivers on a CD in the box to make them as easy to install as (actually, easier than) Windows drivers. Otherwise, building all drivers from source is a pain, and some things just shouldn't have to be put into the kernel (sound and network card drivers are good in-kernel, but drivers for more specialized hardware like PROM programmers should be distributed separately).