linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v10 05/13] kbuild: remove MODULE_LICENSE/AUTHOR/DESCRIPTION in non-modules

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Sun, 5 Mar 2023 17:09:42 +0900
From:   Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@...nel.org>
To:     Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org>
Cc:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        Nick Alcock <nick.alcock@...cle.com>,
        Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>,
        linux-modules@...r.kernel.org, linux-trace-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        eugene.loh@...cle.com, kris.van.hees@...cle.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH v10 05/13] kbuild: remove MODULE_LICENSE/AUTHOR/DESCRIPTION
 in non-modules

On Wed, Dec 7, 2022 at 2:04 PM Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Dec 06, 2022 at 10:02:30PM +0100, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 6, 2022, at 21:03, Nick Alcock wrote:
> > > On 6 Dec 2022, Geert Uytterhoeven uttered the following:
> > > Only MODULE_LICENSE invokes MODULE_FILE and thus ends up introducing a
> > > KBUILD_MODOBJS entry that triggers things going wrong iff not a module:
> > > so only it needs to go out (or be replaced with a variant that doesn't
> > > invoke MODULE_FILE, if you want to keep the license in too --
> >
> > That sounds like a better alternative
> >
> > > but if the thing is no longer a standalone entity at all I'm not sure
> > > what meaning it could possibly have).
> >
> > As far as I can tell, the general trend is to make more things modules,
> > so there is a good chance that these come back eventually. If the
> > information in the MODULE_LICENSE field isn't wrong, I would just
> > leave it in there.
>
> Tooling today uses it though to make a deterministic call on if something
> *can* be a module. In particular after commit 8b41fc4454e ("kbuild: create
> modules.builtin without Makefile.modbuiltin or tristate.conf") we rely on
> the module license tag to generate the modules.builtin file. This in
> turn is used to allow modprobe to *not* fail when trying to load a module
> which is built-in.



If we have a bool driver 'foo.ko' in modules.builtin,
'modprobe foo' will not fail where you expect it will fail.

Is it so important to make this strict?

I do not think so.


What is a point for a user to realize
"Oh, I did not know foo cannot be compiled as a module"


Re-read the commit description of
bc081dd6e9f622c73334dc465359168543ccaabf

The motivation of module.builtin is to know the functionality 'foo'
is available (via built-in or module, whatever).

In this sense, having always-builtin entries in module.builtin is OK.


I do not see any sense in the tooling mess in this patch set.








> So we can't just disable the tag for when the code is built-in as *want*
> to carry it when modules are built-in, that is the point, to help
> userspace with this determination.
>
> I don't think we want to revert 8b41fc4454e as it means we'd force Kbuild to
> traverse the source tree twice.


I do not want to revert it.

and I do not want this series in the mainline.




>
> Geert's point was not keeping MODULE_LICENSE() but instead the other
> MODULE_*() crap for things which are not modules in case in the future
> code becomes a module...
>
> But I don't see the point in keeping things around just in case, if we
> want to keep things simple. Just use the SPDX license tag for the license.
>
>   Luis



--
Best Regards
Masahiro Yamada