Paul G. Allen wrote:
I've always held that the messages (e.g. - when using a NVIDIA video driver) about running a tainted kernel were nonsense. Tainted how? Nothing modified the GPL'd kernel code. Nothing in the NVIDIA license says I can't use the NVIDIA module with Linux (Umm, it was *made* for use with Linux.) I'm not releasing a statically linked version of Linux and NVIDIA code. It's all FUD.
The 'kernel tainted' messages mainly refer to debugging information. Most times when non-GPL modules are inserted into the kernel they're binary-only; thus, we have no insight to the function calls or where a certain oops may be occurring within the code. So, by and large it is a development thing, however, don't take that to mean there isn't at least *some* malice intended towards software licensed under a GPL-incompatible license.
-Kelsey -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
