Re: What does tainting actually mean?

["Nigel Cunningham" <ncunningham@linuxmail.org>]

Hi.

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 06:27:42 +0200, Jurriaan <thunder7@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> From: Nigel Cunningham <ncunningham@linuxmail.org>
> Date: Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 02:00:35PM +1000
>> Hi all.
>>
>> I'm probably going to regret this, but seeing the current discussion on
>> binary modules makes me wonder:
>>
>> What does tainting actually mean?
>>
> It means you can never be sure the bug is _not_ in some binary module.
> It may be unprobable, you may be able to find a bug in the kernel, but
> you're never _sure_.

Is that true? We can see where the oops occurs. If it's in the module,  
nothing more needs to be said. If it's in the kernel itself, we can check  
our source. We could check all the calls the module makes to open source  
code and validate that the parameters are correct. We should be able to  
say with authority 'the module is doing the wrong thing'. We might not be  
able to say exactly what, but we could determine that it is the module.

Nigel
-- 
Nigel Cunningham
C/- Westminster Presbyterian Church Belconnen
61 Templeton Street, Cook, ACT 2614, Australia.
+61 (2) 6251 7727 (wk)