Re: [PATCH] clarify message and give support contact for non-GPL modules

["Paul Rolland" <rol@as2917.net>]

Hello,

I'm definitely no native English speaker, but I wanted to give my pov
on this topic...

> > Understood. So perhaps we should call it "open" and 
> "proprietary" which 
> > are clear, well known words. "tainted" is honestly 
> confusing/hard to 
> > understand for many ordinary users, especially 
> international/non-native 
> > speakers who do not encounter the word that often (thankfully ;-).
> 
> No.  It's tainted.  And hopefully if the user is concerned or 

Agreed. Once you have loaded such a module, your kernel is really
"tainted" by something that cannot really be controlled.
Proprietary is too much neutral and doesn't reflect what you are
now running : some piece of code which may by bloated without anyone
being able to control it.

> Linux is an open source operating system.  There is nothing wrong with
> promoting and protecting the code and license.
Correct.
 
> I've been looking at the latest version of the patch and 
> thinking that it is really
> wrong for any message to be displayed only once.   If the 
> user is unfortunate 
> enough to be loading two or more closed-source modules, the second
> module should not be hidden by the first.   The author of the 
> second module
> should not have their name hidden just because another module 
> was loaded first.

Agreed too.

This patch should make its way in the kernel, so that people are
aware they are using closed-source code.

I simply hope that some "vendors" will not alter kernel code before
building to remove such a warning if they include closed source
module in their distro.

Regards,
Paul

Paul Rolland, rol(at)as2917.net
ex-AS2917 Network administrator and Peering Coordinator

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