On Thu, Nov 30, 2006 at 06:29:36PM +0200, Ira Abramov wrote: > say you had a client you worked for. One day over lunch, one of the > guys of the R&D of a different product at the company tells you how > they circumvent the kernel checks to load a non-GPL module and get > all the symbols a GPL module gets.
Yuck. > This is not exactly a GPL violation, however it makes a stock RHEL > kernel be fooled to think this closed source module is actually GPL > and give it access to more info than the kernel team wanted. .. which means pretty much nothing from a technical POV. From an ethical POV... Yuck. > What would you do? Depends. > do you just protest but keep working there? Unlikely... as you can probably recall from a company we've both worked for in the past, people who don't respect licenses tend to not respect their employees or contractors either. > Inform lkml how they fooled the kernel without revieling the identity of > the violators, just to help them patch it for the future? The module GPL check is easily circumvented. It's not meant to defeat an attacker, just make the wishes of the kernel community with regards to licensing and external modules obvious. IMNEHO, if they're distributing a binary only module they're in violation of the kernel's license already. Circumventing the GPL check is just one more nail in the coffin. Cheers, Muli ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
