From: Krzysztof Kozlowski > Sent: 18 June 2021 09:57 > > On 10/05/2021 12:18, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > > From: Christoph Hellwig <hch@xxxxxx> > > > > commit 262e6ae7081df304fc625cf368d5c2cbba2bb991 upstream. > > > > If a TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE exports symbol, inherit the taint flag > > for all modules importing these symbols, and don't allow loading > > symbols from TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE modules if the module previously > > imported gplonly symbols. Add a anti-circumvention devices so people > > don't accidentally get themselves into trouble this way. > > > > Comment from Greg: > > "Ah, the proven-to-be-illegal "GPL Condom" defense :)" > > Patch got in to stable, so my comments are quite late, but can someone > explain me - how this is a stable material? What specific, real bug that > bothers people, is being fixed here? Or maybe it fixes serious issue > reported by a user of distribution kernel? IOW, how does this match > stable kernel rules at all? > > For sure it breaks some out-of-tree modules already present and used by > customers of downstream stable kernels. Therefore I wonder what is the > bug fixed here, so the breakage and annoyance of stable users is justified. It also doesn't stop non-gpl out-of-tree modules doing anything. They just have to be reorganized with a 'base' GPL module that includes wrappers for all the gplonly symbols and then all the rest of the modules can be non-gpl. This means that drivers that were marked gpl no longer need to be because they now use the wrappers. So it is just an annoyance. Fortunately our main out-of-tree drivers don't use any GPL bits at all - so this change doesn't affect our customer releases. David - Registered Address Lakeside, Bramley Road, Mount Farm, Milton Keynes, MK1 1PT, UK Registration No: 1397386 (Wales)
